


Margaret, May I?

by Arya_Greenleaf



Series: 30 Day OTP Challenge [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Blow Jobs, Clothed Sex, Cunnilingus, Dom/sub, F/M, First Time, Lazy Sex, Light Bondage, Masturbation, Naked Cuddling, One Shot Collection, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sweet/Hot, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, naked kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:21:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 110,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This will be the first in a series of ficlets/drabble written in attempt to up my smut game. Each "chapter" will be a stand-alone story (a bit of porn-with-plot) unless otherwise specified. My instinct is to write these in contradiction to the first scenario that comes to mind or the one that I see most often. Unless, of course, it doesn't make sense with the characters (For instance, Steve would not be the experienced person of the pair when I get to the "First Time" challenge.)</p><p>So, up first is my actual OTP (in spite of the work I've put out thus far): Steve/Peggy. Enjoy!</p><p>UPDATE: Now with summaries for each installment. See first "chapter."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Table of Contents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Added 04 October 2014. NOT AN UPDATE.
> 
> Below are summaries of each part of the series to avoid having to make the work summary ugly and long because gosh do I hate when half of my mobile screen is taken up by one search result. I'll update as this page as the series gets updated! Keep in mind that not all of these stories take place in the same universe.

**KEY:**

Pre-Serum: Skinny Steve and Peggy after recruitment by Erskine but before the serum is administered.

Post-Serum: Steve and Peggy after the serum is administered.

War: During the War.

Post-War: Nobody dies, everybody lives (or at least most people do) because I like to make myself cry.

AU: Something different/canon divergence/re-imaginings/different theories.

* * *

 

[[Challenge 1: Naked Cuddling][Post-Serum/War]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/3896224)

  * The Howling Commandos are on mandatory R&R. Officially, Agent Carter was never there. Unofficially, Bucky needs to learn what a closed door means.



[[Challenge 2: Naked Kissing][Post-Serum/Post-War]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/3989767)

  * Christmas parties at the White House can be an exhausting affair, but at least they got to use that rain-check.



[[Challenge 3: First Time][Post-Serum/War]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/4197726)

  * The Commandos are pushing through the European stage. Agent Carter more than pulls her weight with the SSR and it's no surprise to see her marching with the rest of the men. She's got a side-mission for Steve, very unofficial.



[[Challenge 4: Masturbation][Pre-Serum]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/5016327)

  * Peggy had never met anyone quite like Steve Rogers. She found herself drawn to him in ways that surprised an pleased her.



[[Challenge 5: Oral Sex][Pre-Serum/Post-Serum/Post-War]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/5121431)

  * Unforeseen complications--no, completely foreseen and completely ignored--delay Project Rebirth. The SSR puts up the main players in a brownstone in Brooklyn. Agent Carter wants to know more about the man Erskine chose and who has filled her thoughts as of late. Evidently he likes scandalous poetry about feminine liberation and can commit everyday scenes to paper nearly exactly. Later, when all is said and done, a quiet summer in the Hamptons turns sour. 



[[Challenge 6: Clothed Getting-Off][Post-Serum/Post-War]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/5357978)

  * Being Captain America was never something Steve anticipated would get in the way of being a husband and father. Heck, being Captain America was never something Steve had anticipated, let alone everything else. Struggling with the stress of working for SHIELD, being used as a tool by the government, and being parents, Steve and Peggy find quiet moments together when they can.



[[Challenge 7: Half Clothed/Half Naked][Pre-Serum/Post-Serum/War/Post-War/AU]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/5437598)

  * Captain America wasn't what everyone expected him to be. Never was, right from the get-go. Peggy couldn't imagine him any other way.



[[Challenge 9: Against the Wall][Post-Serum/Post-War]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/7539836)

  * It's always exciting when Agent Carter goes undercover, even more so when Steve gets to watch her work. On a reconnaissance mission at a party, things get hairy and blood gets boiling.



[[Challenge 10: Sweet and Passionate][Post-Serum/Post-War/AU]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/7715432)

  * Peggy is working hard to get SHIELD established as a legitimate intelligence and enforcement organization within the borders of the United States and overseas. Her job is made complicated by the persistence of HYDRA and the growing threat of Leviathan and the Red Room Academy. Over the course of the infancy of SHIELD, Howard Stark launches what everyone believes to be a benign project only to reap disaster.

In the present day, Steve struggles to come to terms with the things he's lost in the first month since he was discovered in the frozen wreckage of the Valkyrie and subsequently woken. While little time has passed for Steve, the rest of the world has moved on. While he can accept that, he cannot accept what he believes is malicious deception by an organization he wants so earnestly to trust.




[[Challenge 21: Lazy Morning Sex][Post-Serum/Post-War]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/7827170)

  * A new school year brings new challenges to the Carter-Rogers household. With their daughter beginning Kindergarten and their son a newly minted teenager looking forward to high school, Steve and Peggy relish the moments they find to be together alone. They've grown comfortable in their life together: Peggy claiming a top leadership role with SHIELD and taking over the New York field office that once housed the SSR; Steve flourishing in his job in illustration and taking like a fish to water in his role as a mostly stay-at-home father. Odd for 1960, but it works for them. New challenges seem like nothing that the two of them can't handle together.

But when that new school year brings back old enemies along with new friends, their comfort is quickly stripped away. Steve never thought a family was in the cards for him before he met Peggy--but that new possibility didn't also equate to the safety and security that a family offers. Instead, it put them more at risk than they ever were before with nothing valuable to lose.




[[Challenge 29: Bondage/Restraints][Post-Serum/Post-War/AU]](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082/chapters/7888365)

  * There are a lot of things about being unceremoniously dumped in the future that Peggy has found she rather enjoys. Quite near the top of that list is the opportunity she and Steve have had to explore themselves and each other, very much enhanced by the wealth of information virtually at their fingertips. In the midst of all that exploration, Peggy's found she has a particular fondness for the texture of rope against her fingers and the color of it against Steve's skin.



COMING SOON:

  * Dominant/Submissive
  * Fingering
  * Trying a New Position




	2. Challenge One: Cuddling Naked

It wasn't often that they got to be this way.

Hell, who were they kidding? They had never before gotten to be this way. And it wasn't likely that they'd have an opportunity to again soon.

So they seized it at a quaint inn in the south of France while the team was on mandatory R&R. The Commandos either out exploring the countryside for diversion or sleeping in the small rooms with the gloriously comfortable feather beds, Captain Rogers and Agent Carter tucked themselves away for a quiet afternoon. Away from the percussion of bombs. Away from HYDRA bases. Away from Philips barking orders. Away from the duties of Captain America.

Officially, Agent Carter wasn't there at all.

They'd curled up on the bed together, a basket of wild strawberries from the field behind the inn between them. Steve relished in the chance to sit in his tee shirt and regular-issue pants. He loved the suit. He loved what the suit stood for. But goddamn that suit got  _hot_. Peggy sat and teased him about his big feet and how he looked like he'd just gotten them for a good ten minutes after he's shucked his shoes and promptly tripped over himself. Peggy, on the other hand, had been the picture of grace as she slipped out of her uniform jacket, untucked the tails of her blouse, and unpinned the sweeping curl at the side of her head.

"Those stockings comin' off too?"

Peggy laughed, "I'm not wearing any." She licked her thumb and swiped it across her shin revealing the trickery that was the powder applied to her skin. "Silk is too valuable at the moment."

Steve shook his head, "Looks like I've still got plenty to learn about dames."

"Indeed," she said with a grin.

And so there they were, stretched out on the bed that was truly too narrow for two people--or at least a pair that included Steve in all of his super-soldier-glory--Steve's back resting against the shot footboard, Peggy lounging against the headboard. Steve marveled at the way her already red lips shimmered with the moisture left behind from the plump berries. "What?" She asked, a meticulously shaped brow rose in question as she flicked the top of a strawberry into the trash.

Steve felt his face flush, color burning high on his cheeks and across the tops of his ears. "Nothing." She arched her brow higher and brushed her hands together. "It's just...you're just..." He shook his head. "I can't believe any of this is real."

"Well, you better start believing, Captain, because I'm not going to disappear in a cloud of fairy dust any time soon."

Steve couldn't help but smile. He reached a tentative hand out, his fingers hovering over Peggy's bare foot beside him. "May I?"

She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes as if deciding. "You may." A slow smile crept across her face as Steve's fingers ghosted over the top of her foot. He looked enraptured as he smoothed his fingers over her shin and calf. She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and felt her cheeks warm with color.

It was hard to believe such a big man could possess such a gentle touch. It was hard to believe that a man who jumped from planes and ran through enemy bases alone and pushed his motorbike to the limit under a spray of bullets could be so slow and tender.

But underneath all of that was the small man from New York who threw himself on a grenade during his first day of training. That man could be gentle and slow and tender.

Peggy drew her legs toward herself and Steve's hands froze in their progress. When she knelt up on the bed and placed the strawberry basket on the floor, he looked up at her through those impossibly long lashes with wide eyes. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Not at all." Peggy moved to sit across Steve's out-stretched legs. She draped her arms about his shoulders. "I just wanted to be closer." He smiled that earnest smile of his and reached forward with his chin tentatively. She met his lips with her own.

It wasn't often that they got to be this way.

Who were they kidding? They never got to be this way. It was always stolen moments between missions. Hard and fast kisses and an unspoken, "Just in case." Frenzied rutting in a race to get off before the war ended them.

But there in the suspended reality of the little inn in the countryside in the south of France, with some of the Commandos exploring the terrain and others sleeping in neighboring rooms and a half-empty basket of wild strawberries, Captain Rogers and Agent Carter began their slow and meticulous exploration.

It started with Steve's tee shirt. Peggy couldn't decide which she liked better: the shirt hugging the hard curves of him or his bare skin. She walked her fingers up the ladder created by his abdominals, making him laugh when she reached his chest and "fell off" leaving her hand no option but to begin the journey again on the opposite side. She smoothed her hands over his chest and down his arms, memorizing every freckle and mole, every ridge of vein and tendon, learning the topography of him.

Steve sighed, relaxed by her ministrations and light caresses. “Peggy,” he breathed.

“Hmm?”

“Can…can you?” His eyes flicked from her face to the collar of her blouse. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded before unbuttoning her shirt and slipping it off, glad she decided to wear her best corselette. She thought he whispered her name again, but his lips remained soundless.  She gave him a hard look, considering, before undoing the closure on her uniform skirt and letting it slip to the floor.

Steve drank her in. Studied her. Committed every curve and freckle and dimple to memory. He would sketch her later. Much later. When he was home, in Brooklyn, and no one else could steal a look at her image. He could imagine Bucky’s ribbing if he was caught with a drawing of Agent Carter in the little notebook that was always tucked into his rucksack. It wasn’t as If there weren’t a few portraits in there already. He always found himself doodling the details of her in the margins. The edges of her eyes with the way her lashes fanned out and the skin crinkled. The peaks of her top lip. The curve of her nose. Peggy settled herself back onto the bed, legs tucked beneath her, presenting her generous figure to its best advantage. Steve brushed his fingers over the swell of her thigh and she hummed approvingly. He looked up at her, expectantly. “Should I?”

“I think so, Steve.” She watched as he slipped awkwardly off the bed. He stood with his body angled slightly away, as if bashful. His fingers fumbled with his belt and fly before he finally stepped out of his trousers. He looked at her and chewed a lip with his brow raised, hands hovering at the waist of his shorts. Peggy nodded her approval. He hooked his thumbs into the fabric and looked at her again. It struck her that neither had ever seen the other completely nude before. Peggy wasn’t sure whether to find his apprehension irritating or charming. “Steve. Take them off.”

And so he did. He faced her for all of a split second before he turned away, hiding the blush that raced down his neck and bloomed across his chest. He looked at himself critically in the small, cloudy glass of the mirror on the wall. Peggy let her eyes roam over the pull of muscle across his shoulders and back, over the way his waist tapered and narrowed, at the heavy dimple at the side of his buttocks when his legs tensed. She marveled over the way that the scrawny, determined man was still there in his body language and posture and affect. “I still can’t believe this is me, that his body is mine. Sometimes I forget I can actually take a deep breath or eat something without worrying about the pain I’ll be in afterward.”

Peggy knelt up behind him and wrapped her arms around him. His body was warm and inviting. She rested her forehead against his shoulder, pressing her lips to his skin for a moment. “But it is you. It always was. The serum wouldn’t have done anything if there wasn’t the potential there.”

Steve didn’t believe her. There was no way that a man who looked like this and possessed the physical abilities he now did could have been trapped within his old body. He still felt like the kid from Brooklyn. He didn’t feel like Captain America, even if everyone said he was. He twisted in her arms to look down at her. Her face was bright and open as he bent down to kiss her. He smirked, “Your turn.”

Peggy chuckled that throaty chuckle of hers, the one that meant she was honest to goodness entertained and not just humoring a poorly timed joke from an over-inflated officer. She slipped off the bed and slipped out of her undergarment. Steve sat down hard, more than a little floored, and pulled her down with him into his lap. He searched his mind for the words he was learning as they ventured through France, “Vous etes belle.”

Peggy grinned, “You’ve been practicing.” Steve laughed and nodded, easing backward so that they were lying on the bed, the woman he idolized and never thought would give him a second glance curled against him and cradled in his arms. Peggy rubbed her foot up and down against his calf. “You’re not so horrible, yourself.” Steve turned gently so that his arm still cradled her shoulders but the bed supported her body. She looked at him very seriously. He thought for a moment he’d done something wrong. “You were lovely before as well.” Steve shook his head and she gripped his chin in her fingers. “You were.” When she released him he kissed her gently, moving down over her jaw to press his lips to her neck and shoulder.

Steve had seen naked women before. There was that one time he’d walked in on Bucky and some dame. He was fairly sure Bucky didn’t even know her name. He’d been working late at school and hadn’t known Bucky was even home. He must have apologized a baker’s dozen times before the girl left. Bucky had laughed and said Steve’d saved him from something he’d probably regret in the morning. The chorus girls on the bond tour were anything _but_ modest. He was actually kind of honored that they felt comfortable enough with him to walk around freely in the dressing areas and back stage. He’d gotten fairly good at working all the zippers and buttons to help them with quick changes. In exchange they’d taught him how to properly pomade his hair and not having it falling in his face all the time was just glorious in general.

But Peggy wasn’t like the Anonymous Dame in Bucky’s bed with her narrow hips and sharp collarbones. Nor was she like the chorus girls with their dancers’ bodies. She was all soft curves and round edges. She wasn’t pert or forward. You would probably never be able to bounce a penny off of her. But she was shapely and fit and just… _Peggy_. Steve relished in the feel of her against him, warm and comforting and grounding while the world outside spun out of control. He committed the tone of each sigh and sound and intake of breath as he ran his hands over her.

She couldn’t help herself. It was like there was a magnetic attraction between her lips and his skin. She moved her hands over his hips, scratching gently with her nails, slipped her legs over and around his and tangled them together. She groaned when his rough fingers slipped around her body and between her legs, touching her gently. His cock twitched against her.

Peggy gently moved his hand away, placing it back on her hip. “Later. We have time.” Steve pulled her close and buried his face in her hair, breathing in the clean scent of her. He was content with later. He was content with just that moment. Just holding her. Just being near her. Skin to skin. Her head against his chest. Her legs tangled up in his.

It was enough. Because it wasn’t often they got to be this way. Heck, they never got to be this way. Just together. Slow and appreciative.

There were heavy footfalls in the hall. Steve turned slightly at the sound of the latch on the door disengaging. “I swear to God, James Barnes, if you open that door I will kick your ass.” Bucky chuckled.

The door closed firmly once again and the world slowed down until there was only smooth skin and plump lips and the lingering taste of strawberries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed it! As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback. Kept this one more romantic and sweet, it seemed appropriate for the "cuddling" theme. Smut to follow, surely.


	3. Challenge Two: Kissing Naked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU in which Steve doesn't loose almost 70 years to ice.
> 
> So sweet it'll rot your damned teeth.

They never made it to the Stork Club, a week next Saturday, but they did get to use that rain check.

It had been touch-and-go. No one knew what the upper limits of the serum’s abilities to sustain Steve in those conditions would be. The only man who could possibly theorize on the matter was long dead. After finding the Tesseract, it had been almost too easy to locate the plane. Using the site of the cube as a starting point and then calculating the expected path of the plane based on the flight trajectory from the HYDRA base to New York and factoring in just how long the connection between Steve and Peggy in the communications room had lasted with the speed of the plane…well, it had been simple enough for the team of logistics experts and Stark to figure out an appropriate search area and eventually locate the wreck.

Peggy chose to contribute in other ways. She threw herself into keeping the Howling Commandos together and active, to carrying on the good work that they had been doing before, to help out where there were pockets of hostility and resistance, to restore peace and rebuild what was destroyed. To continue liberating.

They’d lost hope when they finally found him. It looked like he’d been sitting in the pilot’s seat during the initial impact. The whole main chamber was filled with water, but he was nowhere to be found. There was a door, sealed tightly, leading to an antechamber. That was where they found him. He seemed to have had enough time to rush to the door and close it before it filled completely. He would have had enough air to survive for several days at the least if the water pressure didn’t kill him first. The cold was what probably did it in the end. “Coma, maybe? Hypothermia, for sure.” It was as if he’d been prepared to die, laid out with his shield clutched to his chest as if in state. “I’m an engineer, not a doctor. I’m not sure what to make of it.” But Peggy knew. It was his choice. And it pained her to think that he may have lived for days, wondering if they were looking for him. Cold. Wet. Hungry. Alone. She hoped that in the end he’d found peace and she gave him the dignity of his choice.

His body was fairly frozen when they finally brought him up. “Keep him on ice. We don’t want it rotting on the ship.” Peggy’s nostril’s flared with the anger that welled up within her at the nonchalant way that the medical personnel referred to Steve’s body. Howard squeezed her hand, bringing her back to herself. He assured her it was the right thing to do, they’d want to give him a proper funeral back in the states. She nodded and watched as he was packed into a long wooden crate and covered with ice, both thankful that he had been found and devastated that he had not been found alive. But what could she expect after almost a year of searching?

Back in Washington, he was immediately moved to the undertaker. The following day, she was woken by furious pounding on her hotel room door. “Peggy! Peggy! Open the door! Peggy, _please_!”

“What is it, Howard?” She could only imagine that there had been some attack, that the war was gaining steam again.

“It’s Steve.”

“Is there a problem? Have they mucked up his medals? I gave them a _list_ —“

“No! I…he…just come with me.”

“No, Stark, I told you. I don’t want to see him. I will wait for the funeral like everyone else. It’s too much—“

“Peggy, you need to see this.”

Howard had been right. She did need to see. Because lying in a hospital bed rather than on the undertaker’s table, was Steve. Swaddled tightly in blankets, and rather worse-for-wear-looking. But it was Steve. Alive.

The attending physician explained, “They were warming the body—they were warming _him_ up. To prepare him. They made an incision and he started bleeding. Dead people don’t bleed. They called Strategic immediately and we rushed him over. I don’t know how it’s possible, but he’s alive. He hasn’t woken yet, but we’re not making any drastic calls until we examine him further.”

He’d gotten better day-by-day. The first person he had asked after was Sergeant Barnes. No one tried to stop the open sobbing when he was reminded that his friend had died. After that he asked after Peggy.

“How ‘bout that dance?”

“Think you can handle a dance right now, Captain?”

“I don’t know. But I’m not going to miss any more chances.” He’d swung his legs out over the side of the bed, shaky from disuse, and pulled her to him. “So kiss me once, then kiss me twice…”

“Where’ve you heard that?” He gestured toward the radio at his bedside. The SSR—mainly Phillips—had ensured him a private recovery room with creature comforts. Peggy smiled and rested her forehead against his shoulder for a moment. Superiors be damned, she’d direct them to Philips to get an earful. “So?”

“So, what?”

“You going to kiss me, Rogers?” He’d smiled, soft and sad and tired, and leaned down to press his lips to hers.

A year after the war ended found them at Christmastime. There had been a rather extravagant party at the White House hosted jointed by the President and the still new United Nations. They had danced every moment Steve and the Commandos weren’t being wrangled by some politician or newsman. They’d sat down briefly, surrounded by their friends—their family to listen to people speak about the good work they had done and the sacrifices they had made. They’d all gotten a little filled up when the First Lady spoke about Sergeant Barnes. Steve had been worried that they’d gloss over all of the things he’d done in favor of simply labeling him as Steve’s best friend. The man was more than that and all of them knew it. Steve was the first to point out that the Commandos wouldn’t have happened had it not been for Bucky, had he not already had their loyalty and trust. Peggy had damned well made sure that the speech was good. She’d paid a personal visit to the writer who was working on it.

And when the evening was finished and the car dropped them at the front of their hotel, they both knew they wouldn’t be heading to their separate rooms. For propriety’s sake, they parted in the hall after a chaste peck on the cheek. Steve arrived back at Peggy’s door as soon as he was out of his dress uniform and the coast was clear.

“I didn’t think tonight was ever going to end.” He plunked down hard on the bed, watching as Peggy returned to the vanity to remove the pins from her hair and brush it out.

“It was rather…over the top.”

“They did say some really nice things about Buck, though. And the others. Did you hear Jacques giggling? I think they really enjoyed themselves. I’m glad they didn’t make it all about me. I’m so sick of all that.”

“Indeed.” Peggy swelled with pride. The one constant in the past several years had been Steve’s genuine selflessness. It was the one thing that could be truly counted on in that whole great mess.

Watching him sitting there, robe tied loosely about his waist, swinging his slippered feet back and forth, that whole great mess seemed a lifetime away from them. Listening to the last words she’d ever thought she would hear from him seemed a lifetime away. Seeing him in recovery, wrapped up tight to help ward off the hypothermia seemed a lifetime away. She placed the brush down on the vanity and glanced at the modest ring on her finger. She found herself overwhelmed by the possibilities the lifetime ahead of them held.

She settled herself in his lap, straddling his legs, and smiled as she carded her fingers though his hair. He smiled his lovely lop-sided smile back at her and raised a brow. “And what would you like this Christmas, Mrs. Rogers?”

She laughed, “I am not _Mrs._ Rogers just yet, _Captain_ Rogers.”

“Well, what would you like then, Agent Carter?”

She pursed her lips and traced the edge of his shirt collar with her fingertips. “Just you, I think.”

“There has to be something.”

“Not that I can think of off the top of my head. Give me a few minutes.” He chuckled and craned his neck upward to catch her lips in his.

“Let’s just go down to the courthouse in the morning.”

“And disappoint Dugan? I think not.”

“If you don’t want to disappoint him then how come you’re marryin’ me?”

She gave him a quizzical look. “You know, I don’t know. He is rather brave and dashing. Perhaps I shall give this back to you and find his rooms instead…” She moved as if to take the ring off her finger, knowing she’d get Steve’s goat.

He snatched her hand and held it close to his chest, “Don’t you dare.”

“Perhaps I shant.” She pushed his robe down over his shoulders and he slipped his arms out of the sleeves. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”

“I did.”

“You didn’t step on my feet as many times as you usually do. I’d call it a success.” She grinned and bit her bottom lip as his cheeks colored and he told her she was cruel. “You’ll get better. You just need practice. We’ll lead everyone in a lindy hop or a jitterbug at the Stork for our reception.”

“Oh God. I don’t think I’ve ever dreaded marrying you more than right now.”

She gave him a hard look, “Shut up and kiss me, Rogers.”

He raised a brow and gave a half-hearted salute, “Yes, ma’am.” And he kissed her. Kissed her like he meant it. He was compliant when she drew his shirt up over his head. She shivered when he slipped his fingers under the straps of her brassiere and slid them off her shoulders. She waited while he fiddled with the closure at the back and melted into him when he drew her close and pressed her chest to his, skin-to-skin, hearts thudding against each other.

Steve’s fingers tangled up into her hair and an arm snaked around her back as he pulled her down. His slippers thumped against the floor when he shucked them off his feet. He stopped kissing her and she propped herself up, about to ask what was wrong. “I still can’t get over the color of that lipstick.” He contorted his neck to look down at her hands on his shoulders. “Or those nails.” He ran his hands, rough with use in the field, up over his sides. “I think red is my favorite color.”

She smiled and kissed him. He’d been color-blind. One of the laundry list of reasons they kept rejecting him at enlistment centers. A color-blind artist. Skinny and crooked and asthmatic and flat-footed…she couldn’t believe how he’d made it into adulthood when she’d reviewed his file. She’d been half convinced he’d drop dead during basic. But somehow that sensitive, inquisitive, brilliant creature had survived. And his kind heart had made him the perfect candidate for the serum. And throwing himself on a dud grenade had made him the perfect candidate for her to love.

He often talked about how bright and loud and colorful the world had become. It horrified her that his perception of color had been formed in the midst of war. But he only ever talked about the good things. The red of her lipstick and dress and nails. The blue of Barnes’ eyes. The deep chocolate of Jones’ skin. The greenery of the forest where they stalked or fought or camped for the night. The brilliant oranges and sensual purples of a sunset and twilight. Every time he opened his mouth, she found herself falling more completely in love with him.

And when he used that mouth to mark her flesh and claim her as his she found herself falling more completely in want of him.

His lips moved over her neck. Cheek moved over the swell of her bosom. Hands kneaded her sides and she arched her back down to press herself into him. “Oh, Steve.” His hands slipped down into the waist of her tap pants to grip her backside and moved her against him, drawing a most unladylike whine out of her.

Peggy grasped his arms to move his hands away so that she might roll off of him to shimmy out of the silk shorts. She turned over onto her stomach and cross her legs in the air. “So…?”

He raised a brow; hand frozen in the path it was following down from her shoulder toward her backside. “Hmm?”

“Will you not be removing your pants as well?”

“Nah, I’m just enjoyin’ the view.” He smiled that lop-sided smile and waggled his brow at her. She pushed him away half-heartedly.

“You are _such_ a cad.”

He flopped down onto his back and covered his heart with his hand. “I’m wounded.” He laughed and slipped off the bed and out of his pajama pants. Peggy lowered her legs and he followed them upward, kissing his way from her heel to her lips as he crawled up the bed.

They lost themselves in each other. A tangle of leg and arm and hand and foot. Peggy lost count of how many marks she thought she’d have on her body when the sun came up. He kissed her like he was hungry and couldn’t get enough to eat. He kissed her like a thirsty man in the desert. He kissed her like he thought he was going to need another rain check.

She matched his hunger, his need, his want. She was never going to hold back again. Propriety be damned. Good breeding and finishing be damned. And superior officers. And temperance. And all of the rest of it.

She’d allowed her fear of being seen as less for having fallen in love get in the way before. And just as she had allowed herself to be free of it, to give herself to him, she’d lost him.

She was never going to feel that fear and loss again. She wasn’t holding back and she wasn’t letting go.

She kissed him breathless and made him groan. Made him pant. Made him whisper her name like a prayer.

She writhed against him, feeling him twitch, his half-hearted hardness trapped between their bodies damp with sweat and warm with effort.

“Peggy?”

“Mm.”

“I’m exhausted.” His eyes looked tired even though his lips were kiss-swollen and wanton, his face a contradiction in itself. She was feeling it too, though. The night of dancing had taken its toll.

“Quite honestly, my feet are on fire.” He chuckled and apologized. “No need, darling. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He kissed her lazily, mouthing across her jaw and drawing her into the expansive shelter of his arms, curling his body around hers.

They spent the night alternately dozing and waking enough to steal quiet kisses and caresses. In the morning, he was gone, back to his own room before their respective breakfasts were delivered by the polite staff on highly polished carts, ever conscious of her reputation.

The Stork Club couldn’t come fast enough. Perhaps she would take him up on the offer of the courthouse if it meant never having to wake to an empty bed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line Steve heard from the radio is a bit of "It's Been a Long, Long Time" which took off after the war ended as sung by Kitty Kallen and performed by the Harry James Band. The lyrics tell the story of someone welcoming their loved one home after an extended absence (ie: welcoming a sweetheart home from war).
> 
> It's also the song that is playing in Steve's apartment in the scene just before the Winter Soldier makes his appearance there in CA:TWS.
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback.


	4. Challenge Three: First Time

"Steve," she said, her voice a breathy whisper. She was trembling and holding onto him, driving him toward his own end.

The building was partially destroyed, a casualty of an air attack. The Commandos had arrived in time to get most of the town evacuated but the rain had slowed the rest of the unit that was following them.

It always seemed to be raining. The road never had time to dry out and harden. They constantly feared that whatever bridge they were on at the time would wash out from beneath them. Everything had faded into the grey, watery skyline and the occasional—well, more than occasional—flash-bang of gunfire and explosives. Everything had turned to mush. The cold and damp had settled into everyone's bones and refused to be chased away.

But this was solid and warm and real. This was Peggy.

"Captain!" She'd broken out into a broad grin when she spotted him. Philips seemed more than a little put out to have her under foot and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly as the two jogged to meet each other. Communications had gone out, their radio had been destroyed in the raid when they ran to take cover with the evacuees. "Glad to see the Howlers are all in one piece." She was damp. Her boots were muddy. There was a rip in the knee of her trousers. Her hair was tied back with a scrap of twine, shorter locks falling down and sticking to the sides of her face and neck with rain and sweat. Her trademark red lips were a ghost of their normal color.

"Glad to see you are too."

The rest of the day was spent organizing the regroup effort. The effort quickly degenerated into chaos. People were in shock. Terrified. Catatonic. Furious. Confused. Bewildered. Residents had become evacuees and evacuees had become refugees in just a few short hours of flame and thunder and smoke and a rain of brick and bullet. They needed to be organized. Moved. Aided. The Howlers became unit leaders--clearing rubble to locate belongings or missing family; communicating over spare radios with those posted elsewhere, looking for someplace to send the suddenly homeless; trying to determine the best next move for the troop, to estimate the next step in the pattern of attack, to try to head it off.

Steve's shoulders ached, arms trembling with the effort of lifting and moving chunks of what once was the church in the town square to free the space for the Allied tanks to move through, to form up in preparation of camping in the ruins for the night. He knew if he was tired and sore, it must have been fours times worse for the others. He watched carefully as Falsworth swayed on his feet for a moment, ready to bound across the short distance between them if need be. The Union Jack righted himself, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut before continuing his task.

Some day bled away into night. Medics tended to those who’d been injured in a slow procession of most-hurt-served-first. Dugan entertained a group of children, allowing them to climb him like a tree. One small boy, bandage over half of his dirty face, snatched the bowler off the big man’s head and ran off with it fallen down over his eyes. It felt like a thousand years had gone by since he had been a child, able to run off and play and laugh and see the small light moments in the middle of the poverty and hunger and illness he and his mother faced on a daily basis. But this…this was so much worse. He envied their innocence.

The moon was full and bright, the night cloudless in spite of the dampness of the air. The majority of the new refugees had been dealt with and sent with an escort to the closest safe area. All that was left were the sick or injured, the medics would continue working late into the night. There was nothing more that Steve and the Commandos could do. The whole unit was settling in and throwing up tents or finding a dry place in the ruins to tuck themselves away in for the night. They were losing the element of surprise by hunkering down, but the danger of washed out roads in the dead of night, even with the bright sky, was just far too great.

Steve stood in the middle of everything, fingers entwined over the crown of his head, helmet dangling on his arm. “I just don’t get it.”

A warm hand clapped his back. “I don’t think we’re supposed ta ‘get it,’ Steve.” Bucky stood beside him looking hollow and tired and grim. “They’re just gonna bomb the shit outta everythin’ they can. Destroy it all. Nuh’thin ta go back to when the dust settles. Trapped at their mercy.”

“You’re just a ray of sunshine, tonight, Buck.”

“Yeah, well, somebody’s gotta be the jerk. You’ve already got a monopoly on bein’ a g’dammed punk.” Steve huffed in annoyance when Bucky smacked the helmet so it swung around and knocked him in the face. “We’re set up in that building there.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of one of the less damaged structures. “Found a few beds, some pillows, couple of blankets that didn’t burn. It’ll be like when we were kids, puttin’ the couch cush’ins on the floor.”

Steve allowed himself to smile. A little bit of home. “You guys go ahead and get settled, get some rest.” He nodded toward the makeshift command tent. “I’m going to go see if Phillips has any new orders for us. Agent Carter mentioned she’d heard from a contact that might need help when we’re finished here.”

Bucky barked out a short laugh, “Finished…”

When Steve ducked into the command tent Philips turned a sour look on him. “Damnit, Rogers.”

“Sir?”

“I…” He swiped his hand down over his face and sighed heavily. “I don’t know. I’ll update you went I’ve figured out what I’m pissed at ya for.” Steve glanced up at Peggy; her lips turned up at the corners and pressed into a thin line, an amused eyebrow raised. They moved through the motions of directives and planning and maneuvers until Steve’s head was swimming with it all. “Stark’ll be here by morning. He’ll pick you and the boys up and drop you into this zone here.” He tapped his index finger against a point on the map. “The locals have a bit of a resistance going. They need support. We’d like to strike a little terror in the enemy. Throw that shield around a little knock a few heads together. All in good fun.” He sat down heavily in the folding chair at the table. “Go get some shut eye. Stark’ll have another radio for you, too. I’m sick’a havin’ to rely on him to replace the things you break. So stop breakin’ shit, please?”

“I’ll try, Sir.” He nearly laughed at the way Peggy rolled her eyes over Phillips’ shoulder.

“I believe I’ll retire for the night, as well, Colonel. I don’t believe I have anything further to contribute.” He waved a hand and sighed dismissively and the two ducked out of the tent together. “Are you alright, Captain?”

“Tired. The other’s have got it worse though, I have no room to complain.”

“How is Sergeant Barnes?”

“He’s…okay. Different. But okay. I don’t know how I could have expected anything else. He won’t talk about it, though. Won’t say what Zola did to him.”

Peggy pursed her lips, “We do need to know eventually…If Zola was experimenting, if he was trying to duplicate the serum again, if he failed…there’s no telling how that could affect Barnes. Zola was a fucking lunatic.” There was worry in her voice, anger. She’d come to love the Commandos like they were her own kin through countless battles and coded radio messages. She saw their captivity and torture as much as an affront as Steve did.

“I know.” They moved slowly up the creaky stairs in the building the Commandos had claimed, checked in on the men spread out through the lower rooms, peeling off gear and trying to wipe away dirt and dust, rubbing at tired muscles and sore feet. Bucky was curled up on a narrow mattress in one room, holding himself and pretending to sleep. “You said you got a message? Something I—we—can help with?”

Across the hall there was a cramped room with cushions and blankets spread out on the floor for him already. Bucky was still trying to take care of him in whatever small way he could. Steve swept his arm into the modest room, “Ladies first.” Peggy let out a short laugh and stepped inside. She sank down against the wall, sat atop a cushion.

“I’ve had word from Ronald.” Steve raised a brow; it wasn’t a name he’d heard before. “Major Balfour. He’s with the Rifle Corps, part of a group trying to save or salvage Europe’s artwork and architecture as well.”

“Is that why part of our objective was to divert fire from the church?” Peggy made a sound of agreement and started to unlace her boots. Steve began to strip off his holsters and belt, eager to simply feel the absence of their weight. “I thought there may have been something valuable in there.”

“Yes, the building itself. It was one of the oldest in this region.” Steve felt a slight pang of guilt at having not fulfilled that objective. Getting the people that were hiding inside to safety was surely more important though. “Yes, of course, you’ve got nothing to regret on that account.” Her head bumped lightly against the wall and she let out a relieved sound when Steve moved to help her pull off the boots and damp socks. He’d seen her in formations and active fire fights. He knew she’d walked just as far, fought her way just as hard. She must have been exhausted as any of the Commandos were. “Ronald’s been in Belgium for the most part, there’s a particularly important statue there that the Germans may try to take. They’ve puzzled out most of what’s missing, what’s been stolen—Manet, and Degas, and Michelangelo, and just…so much more—but they can’t quite figure out where it’s all being taken. Eventually, it’s to end up in a sort of national museum but in the mean time, it’s just…gone.”

“But how are we supposed to help?”

“Not sure yet. But I thought you’d be interested in a bit of a side mission, since you’re want to disobeying orders and plowing your own paths anyway.” She laughed at the offended face he made. Of course he would help where he could. He understood the implications of artwork being taken or destroyed—they were destroying the very culture, the heart, and the history, of the people who held it. He was just a kid from Brooklyn, but he wasn’t the simple-minded fighting machine that most people thought before they met him—that the enemy believed him to be.

He unfastened the outer layers of his uniform, shucking the coat and padding, stretching out and leaning against the wall beside Peggy in his tee shirt and trousers. She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. Haven’t had a nice bath in a few days.”

She chuckled, “That’s quite alright. Neither have I.” She grew quiet. Her face was a mask of concern in the weak lamplight. “Steve?” He looked down at her fingers inching across his on the floor. “I thought we lost you today. When the radio went out. When you stopped responding.” She looked up at him with a determined set to her jaw. “Don’t you dare worry me like that again.”

“I’m sorry.” He ran a dirty hand through sweaty hair. “I don’t seem to have much luck with radios and transponders.”

“I’m going to have Howard implant a tracking device in you when he comes to pick you up.” Her face stayed serious for a moment then broke out into a grin. “Steve?” Her face fell again. “I’m serious. You need to be more careful. You’re…you’re not immortal.” She reached up to cup his face. “Brooklyn is going to be terribly boring if you don’t go back with me.”

Steve raised a brow, turning his face to lay his lips against her palm for a moment. “So you’re going back to Brooklyn now?”

“Indeed. You know, fresh start, new page in the book, all of that.” She smiled softly up at him and pulled him down to kiss him in earnest. “Something to look forward to.”

Heavy footsteps fell on the floorboards and faded as they moved toward the stairs. “Shit,” Steve said under his breath as he pulled away from Peggy. “I should—“

She placed a hand on either side of his face, making him look back at her. “You should allow him space. Crowding him will not get you any further in trying to understand what happened. If I know anything about Barnes it’s that he doesn’t like to share his feelings.” Steve sighed and leaned his forehead into hers.

“You’re right.”

Steve felt himself nodding when Peggy spoke again, her voice barely above a whisper, “Steve?”

“Mm.” He was surprised she had not left him yet. If there was one thing they carefully avoided, it was talk amongst the men about their relationship. Snide comments about _Agent Carter’s Pet_ or _The Kept Boy,_ comments that had started after he'd earned his ride back to camp with her in the car, when everyone had noticed the look she gave him when he jumped in the back seat. Whispers about how Peggy was fucking her way across Europe. Steve wasn’t proud of his reaction the first time he’d heard something in passing about how _The Queen of England_ hadn’t given him a second glance until the size of his cock could match the size of his ego. Peggy had had to fight her way to get into the position she held. He didn’t want to be the thing that cost her everything, all of the hard-earned respect.

Her lips were warm and wet at his ear. “Don’t ever make me worry like that again.”

“I won’t.” She planted kisses down over his jaw as she shifted her weight onto his legs. “Peggy, I—“

“Hush.” He was lost in her lips and the warmth of her body against his. They hadn’t ventured this close, hadn’t been this reckless. They were careful. Stealing kisses. Touches. Looks. Caresses. Pressing scraps of paper into each other’s hands as they parted at the flap of a command tent. She’d called him a hopeless sap when he slipped a mangled wildflower into her pocket, carried for miles, wilted and bent. A little scrap of color in the grey mush of the world they seemed unable to escape.

Not to say they hadn’t found time for heated, desperate moments.

He circled his arms around her, pulling her close against his chest, her knees resting on the floor on either side of his hips. She drew in a sharp breath when he swiped the flat of is tongue over the tendon that strained in the side of her neck, the tension in her manifesting in that spot. “Steve,” she breathed out when he looked up at her, her eyes intense and shadowed in the low light.

They were a flurry of movement, all hands and teeth and lips. She shucked her leather jacket as he loosened her tie. Her fingers worked to unfasten his belt and slip the zipper on his pants open. She swallowed his groan as he gripped her hips. He was already half hard and fully embarrassed. “Peggy, I—“

Her hands stilled, fingers curled over the waist of his shorts. She looked at him seriously, her face flushed, color high on her cheeks. “Do you want to?”

Steve was bewildered. Did he want to? Yes. She had invaded his dreams. Of course he wanted to. But his body was screaming for rest and sleep. His mind was reeling with tactical strategy and stolen art and bombed buildings. His head was filled with the feel of her, warmth of her, smell of her, solidness of her.

He’d imagined their first time together differently. A trip to the pictures. A nice early dinner at a swanky place. Maybe dancing at the Stork. Then retiring to his apartment—his honest to goodness apartment with new furniture and its own bathroom and a wooden bed frame instead of a steel death trap of squeaks and springs and a good mattress instead of a thin bedroll filled with straw and old rags. There would be low light and warmth and all the time in the world to undress and explore.

He’d never imagined being with her in a half-destroyed building in a village he couldn’t pronounce the name of, in a country at war. He didn’t imagine being sore and sticky and covered in dust turned to grime and reeking of days-old sweat with his team trying to sleep in the rooms below and an army unit just beyond the walls.

He searched her face, “Do you?” She nodded. “Then yes.” She broke out into a grin and kissed him with renewed enthusiasm. Her hands slipped down between them, her palm pressing and shifting and coaxing him to arousal in spite of his fatigue. He pulled away from her, breathing hard. “You can’t…you can’t keep doing that.” He couldn’t help the choked whimper that escaped him at the loss of her hand. She moved to work his pants and shorts down over his hips. He could feel his face grow warm as his erection bobbed free in the humid air and he reached hands trembling with nerves and anticipation out to get the front of her trousers undone.

Peggy stood and slipped out of the army-brown and her underwear in a single, practiced motion. Steve found himself enraptured by the curve of her hips below the hem of her blouse. The flow of her thighs, smooth and firm and thick. The hardness of her calves, muscled from trekking across Europe like it was a stroll down the boardwalk at Coney Island. He wanted to sketch her in charcoal and paint her in watercolors and oils, to force a block of clay to conform to her shape. He wanted the image of her legs, strong and shapely, etched into his mind. His cock twitched as he leaned forward to smooth his hands over her skin, luxuriating in the feel of warm flesh and soft hairs. Her breath hitched as his fingers slid upward, making their way toward the dark curls between her thighs. She stepped back. He thought he’d done something wrong.

“I’m sorry—I just—I’ve never—“ Never what? Seen a beautiful, half-naked woman? No. He and Bucky had snuck into Minksy's a few times. And there was that woman who lived in the building beside there's who didn't seem to know how to close her curtains. Never touched? No. He'd touched Peggy before. Hurried groping in the back of an open top car late at night. This was different. This was overwhelming.

“Rubber.”

“What?” He was acutely aware of his arousal and the shadows cast across her skin.

She picked up his utility belt. “Have you got a rubber?” He opened and closed his mouth, not sure how to respond for a moment. He nodded and took the belt from her and drew his knees up feeling too exposed with his shirt hitched up and his pants pulled down around his thighs and her eyes on him too intently. He wished he could remember which pouch the damned things were in. Army handed them out like candy, too aware that if they didn’t a large number of men would come home with something nasty. They proved useful for other things, though. Steve always had a few on hand to protect the barrel of his gun, most men did.

He finally pulled one out and set the belt aside. “I…I’m not sure how—“ His mind went blank. As many times as he'd rolled one over his gun, he couldn't make his hands repeat the motion then.

She took the package from him wordlessly. He’d been ready for some teasing remark; he was always ready for it. He’d spent high school and college listening to comments about how he hadn’t gotten a girl and must be a fruitcake or that he must let that Barnes kid give it to him good. Bucky was always a pal about getting them doubles on the weekends, always told the girls only the best things about him. Meeting them was another thing. Holding their interest was nearly impossible. He couldn’t keep up with them dancing, usually gave up in favor of avoiding an attack. And when they heard his wheezing and realized he was asthmatic aside from clumsy? That was the end of it. Short, scrawny, and off translated to lonely. He never had any aspirations to be the ladies’ man Bucky was, never wanted to rush off and do the things Bucky joked about. It would have just been nice to be wanted.

And suddenly he was. By this gloriously strong willed and intelligent woman. This brave woman. This quick wit with her red lips and nails. Sometimes, when she was kissing him, he was sure he was going to wake up alone in the tenement he shared with Bucky, lungs tight and heart fluttering in his chest and he’d have to drag himself out of bed to hit the street and sell papers and pray that he could scrape together this month’s rent without Bucky’s paycheck from the dock.

Peggy was on her knees beside him, her nose sliding against his, her lips working his open. Steve’s heart thudded in his chest when she touched him, when she rolled the rubber down over him. She shifted her weight, slung a leg over his, the round of her behind resting against his legs. He followed her movement, trying to keep their lips connected. She pulled back to catch her breath. He smoothed his hands up over her bare thighs, hesitant for a moment before venturing to slip his fingers between her legs. Her eyes fluttered closed and she sighed. She was warm and slick and soft. “Steve,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

She put a hand on his shoulder, catching his eye and holding it as she shifted her body forward and guided him into her.

Peggy’s eyes fell closed, her lips parted, she let out a deep breath. Steve searched his mind, trying to figure out what was supposed to happen. “Are you—“ She was so warm. Something in her tightened, sending sparked up his spine and heat pooling in his belly. “Are you—okay?” He searched his mind, scratching at the back of his brain for all of the second-hand information learned from Bucky or heard in whispers at bars and in alleys.

Nothing he’d heard proved to be true, at least from the serene look on Peggy’s face. She chuckled, the sound low in her chest. “Quite alright.” Her hand slid from his shoulder to his chest as her hips rolled forward, her stomach bumping against his on the upswing. She opened her eyes. “I do believe you may need to take a deep breath or two, though.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously, serving only to make his heart thunder all the more.

Steve slid down, slouching against the wall as she rocked her hips, grinding her body down against him. Clearly this wasn’t her first encounter. It struck him that he didn’t care. She captured her lips in his as he tried to match her movement, his rhythm jerky and awkward in the uncomfortable position. He tried to focus on her mouth, on her warm hands against his chest, the peach-fuzz smoothness of her thighs under his palms and the whisper of the hem of her blouse against the backs of his hands. Anything but the heat and closeness. Anything but the vaguely slick glide of her movement.

This was nothing like touching himself, alone in the dark on a squeaky bed frame and a thin mattress, trying to get off before his lungs exploded or his heart fluttered out of his chest.

This was like the fireworks over the Brooklyn Bridge on his birthday.

This was like stumbling out of the big metal cocoon and having all of his senses assaulted at once with new vibrancy and clarity making him dizzy and making his nerves thrum with anticipation.

She was making sharp, breathy sounds above him. She drew one hand toward her chest, fist clenched, as if trying to hold herself together, hold everything in.

One day, he’d know what she sounded like when she wasn’t holding back.

He was aware of his own low grunts as he tried to match her. It was getting frustrating. It wasn’t pleasant.

Steve pushed himself up and wrapped his arms around her. He shifted, trying to lay her down without parting, feeling his face flush with warmth when he failed. She watched him, a lip caught between her teeth, hands resting lightly on his biceps as he reached down between them. He fumbled for a moment before he eased himself down, sliding back into her warmth.

It wasn’t long after that, and over too quick. Her short nails dug half moons into his skin through his tee shirt. Her heels pressed into his backside, pulling him down, pulling him deeper as he snapped his hips back and forth, making the heavy, humid hair fill with the sound of skin-on-skin and the clinking of his belt buckle dangling at his thigh.

Peggy’s eyes squeezed shut, her mouth dropped open. She trembled around him, her heels dug harder, her hands held firmer—and then everything was just tightness and warmth and explosion in the back of his head and his pulse was hammering the same way it did when he was riding a bike straight into enemy fire.

Steve hovered over her as he gasped, trying to force the world back into focus. She was murmuring and caressing and her legs were sliding down on either side of him.

“I don’t think I want to do that with anyone else.”

“Then don’t worry me like that again.”

Peggy was gone in the morning. Steve was alone on the floor in the first weak rays of the impending sunrise. “Hey, punk.” Steve groaned at the feel of Bucky’s boot prodding his side. “Stark’s here. We’re movin’ out. Get ya ass in gear.” He started to move away as Steve sat up and rubbed his face. His body was tight. His back ached. That mattress filled with straw and old rags in that tenement in Brooklyn was looking better and better. “Steve?”

“Yeah?”

Bucky gestured to the corner of his mouth. “Red isn’t ya cuh’lah.” Steve's eyes widened and he swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. Bucky grinned and walked out of the room, leaving Steve to fumble alone with his gear and wonder what Philips would have to say about his lack of punctuality.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed it!
> 
> The Major Balfour that Peggy talks about is a gentleman who was a historian and Fellow at Cambridge and served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps during WWII. He used his academic background as one of the Monuments Men, a real group that inspired the George Clooney movie. They protected, reported, located, and restored artwork and architecture--the core of culture throughout the European stage--that the Nazis systematically destroyed or stole from museums, private collections, and individuals and hid over the course of the war. Ultimately, much of the artwork was to end up in a national museum that Hitler planned to build or wind up in the private collections of some of the officers. When things headed south, the order was given to destroy it all. Major Balfour gave his life in Cleves while helping to safeguard some important works in the church there. He was also the first to report the theft of the _Bruges Madonna_ from the cathedral. You can read more about him, the dozens of other members of this culture-saving adventure, and the _Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section_ at the Monuments Men Foundation website. Some of the artwork is still missing today, either destroyed or hidden. If I remember correctly (and please let me know if I'm wrong) the Soviets also seized stolen art from the Nazis or looted it themselves. There have been quite a few works found, returned, or turned up at auctions in recent years.
> 
> I thought that Steve would be interested in the operation as both an artist and a generally socially and culturally conscious person--and that Peggy would absolutely _know_ he would be interested in/concerned about it.
> 
> Because that's what you came here for, right? Smut with a side of history lesson.
> 
> And yes, Steve would have probably had a supply of condoms on him. The army encouraged their use as a part of a campaign to prevent the spread of VD and other STIs while the men were overseas. Packs of three could be purchased for a few cents at strategically placed stations. They were also functionally useful to protect the barrel of a firearm from moisture and prevent malfunction associated with it.
> 
> Minsky's was a theater that featured burlesque performers occasionally in New York City in the earlier half of the twentieth century. Mayor LaGuardia launched a campaign against the burlesque theaters and conducted raids on them. Eventually the theaters in NYC had to shut down, but burlesque remained pretty popular on the national traveling circuit. 
> 
> And dammit, Peggy wouldn't be hairless and smooth! At least in the US, shaving didn't become popular as more than a status symbol until the war years and even then wasn't all that popular until after the war had ended. And she's in an active war zone. I don't think she would see the use of time and money to acquire a razor and keep her legs and underarms shaved as efficient or useful in the least. She's got far more important things to worry about. And Steve wouldn't care one damned bit. In fact, I think he'd like it.
> 
> I'd also like to direct you here for some fun interaction on my blog:  
> http://onheil-ferguson.tumblr.com/post/91515312945
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback.


	5. Challenge Four: Masturbation

Peggy had never met anyone quite like him before.

She had been completely baffled when he turned up for basic training at Camp Leigh. Phillips had been appalled, had thought it was a joke. Someone in recruiting was yanking his chain, trying for a little levity in the midst of the seriousness of the situation—the War, the tenuous nature of the Scientific Strategic Reserve’s standing, the fact that Erksine was being actively hunted by Schmidt (Oh yes, they absolutely knew.). But when Abraham insisted that Private Rogers be given a chance, that he “had the right stuff,” that he “had potential,” Phillips allowed it.

Peggy watched for weeks while Steve Rogers fought his way through training in every way possible. He fought for a voice in the classroom, forever raising his hand, eyes pleading to be called on. Fought for a place at the table in the mess hall. Fought to keep up with the other men on the track, the obstacle courses. Fought to earn his marks with a firearm.

All the while with this incredible…swagger. Not quite confidence, not quite vanity. Never full of himself, but so _sure._ Daring anyone to tell him he _couldn’t._ To dare him not to.

Something in him spoke to whatever was in her. She felt draw to him. Not quite moth to flame, but something like it.

She took note of his expression after she punched Hodge. How he looked neither impressed nor shocked but simply satisfied. She put some extra effort into getting to know him after that.

He’d brought a suitcase full of novels and charcoal pencils and several sketchbooks that were just small enough to fit into a coat pocket.

He’d been through art school.

He’d been a cartoonist, done some advertising work. Had hit the pavement and earned money as a newsy when commissions were scarce.

Lived with a friend in Brooklyn.

Had never met his father. Had buried his mother next to the man far too early.

Then he’d captured the flag.

Peggy had lost count of how many times and how many men had tried to achieve the same by shimmying up the pole or attempting to climb over each other. She would sit in the jeep, write down her observations. _Usual tactics. Usual results. No evidence of resourcefulness or creativity. Recruit failure._ She could never understand why they insisted on forever trying to go to the flag when it seemed to her that it might be simpler to make the flag come to them.

Rogers had made the flag come to him.

There was such beauty in the way he’d stood and surveyed the height of the pole and the empty space on the lawn around it. She imagined she could seethe gears in his head spinning. He just pulled the damned pin out of the anchor. The pole fell. He passed the flag off and claimed his space on the seat behind Peggy.

The other officers who’d bore witness had called him cocky.

But the smile that had crept across his face had been positively amused. His eyes had sparkled like a little boy who’d just outsmarted the school matron and gotten himself out of trouble.

Peggy had chatted with him on the drive back to camp. Evidently he was just as flabbergasted that no one else had thought of the method he had used as she was. “What were you trying to figure? Before you pulled the pin?”

“About how tall it was.” He shrugged. “If it was longer than I thought, would’a hit somebody. I w’s decidin’ if I should push it over in the other direction.”

She quizzed him about other _anomalies_ she’d noticed. The way he climbed rope nets or crawled under wire. How he compensated for what she was sure she’d heard mentioned was fairly poor eyesight at the range. The methodical way he picked through the mess hall like he was avoiding land mines.

She was fascinated.

“Carter…Carter… _Carter!_ ”

Peggy drew in a sharp breath and looked up from the notes in front of her. “Yes. Apologies, Colonel.”

“Rogers. You two seemed pretty friendly this morning. What’s your opinion on the pipsqueak?”

She glanced down at her notes again, scrawled in the elegant handwriting that had been trained into her from the moment she’d lifted a pencil. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “Whatever you feel he’s lacking in physical presence, he more than makes up for in mental acuity. He’s…intelligent, resourceful, thinks though simple and complex problems rather rapidly. He…adapts. Quite readily. I imagine they’re all skills he’s honed over quite some time.” Dr. Erksine was grinning. “But I think one of the more important things about Rogers is his capacity to think about how his actions will effect others.” She explained his thoughts on the flagpole. Phillips scowled his way through the rest of the meeting.

That night, after lights out, lying on her narrow bed in the officers’ quarters (even if she wasn’t actually an officer—rather a special agent—Philips certainly saw the value of having her nearby and safely tucked away from lecherous young doughboys), Peggy just couldn’t get Rogers out of her head.

He was so unlike the typical young man, so unlike the countless recruits Phillips and Erksine had already run though and deemed unfit. It was not as if many of the others had not grown up in similar circumstances: little or no family to speak of, poor, struggling to get by. It wasn’t an uncommon thing, not now, not on the heels of the Depression. But Steve seemed to have had to fight through so much more. Chronic illness, _asthma_ , on top of all of the rest? Sometimes she was amazed that he didn’t fall to pieces the first day. But there was that _thing_ about him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. A spark. And aura. Something.

Peggy lay there for hours, staring into the darkness, unable to capture sleep. Unable to get him out of her head. Unable to figure out why.

She spent more time observing him when she made her rounds. Watching as he carefully disassembled his firearm, meticulously cleaned and oiled it, reassembled it. Watching his fingers, digits that belonged on ivory keys. Taking in the careless fall off blond strands across his forehead and the way he hunched close to his sketchbook, nose practically touching the page as he sat at the table in mess. The sweep of his eyelashes across the rise of his angular cheeks. The clench of his jaw. The way his bottom lip stuck out when he painted a serious expression across his face.

When he threw himself down on the dummy grenade, that was it.

She wanted him.

Every inch of him.

From the tips of the toes on his flat feet to the ends of the forever-flopping hairs top of his head.

She wanted to feel the press of his fingers on her hips and the press of his lips on hers.

The want was overwhelming.

“It’s just a silly infatuation,” she told herself as she dabbed red lipstick over her mouth. Her signature color. Matched perfectly to the lacquer on her nails. “It is simply because he is not like the others.” She snapped her mirror shut, dropped it back into her cosmetics case. “It’s nothing.”

But it wasn’t. It was not nothing.

It was not nothing when the thought of him made her warm. It pooled in her belly and the soles of her feet. It crept up her chest in a rosy blush and settled high on her cheeks.

“Oof!”

“I’m sorry ma’am. It was my fault.” He immediately bent down to gather the papers that had fallen from her arms.

She bent to assist, “Quite the opposite, Rogers. I wasn’t paying attention.” He shuffled the papers neatly back into their folders and handed the short stack back to her. “Although, it is after lights out. May I ask what you’re doing out?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothing it down toward the left. “The, ah, the rest of my platoon. They’ve all gone to New York. They’re shipping out on the Queen Mary tomorrow.”

“Indeed. It appears you’ve got that entire barrack to yourself.” He nodded, made a deliberate move to straighten his spine and square his shoulders. He nodded.

“I had an int’restin’ conversation with Dr. Erksine.” His eyes fell from her face to her shoes. “He said I should take a walk, clear my head.”

“Ah, yes, the procedure is tomorrow.” He nodded. “You can change your mind, you know, Rogers. No one is going to force you to go through with it. There are plenty of other duties to fill, plenty of other ways to utilize your skills.”

His expression hardened. Eyebrows came together, lips pressed into a thin line—or at least as thin a line as they could ever be, _dear Lord they were made for kissing._ “No, ma’am. I’m not going to change my mind. I haven’t got a right ta do anythin’ less th’n any’un else.”

Her mouth quirked up in a half smile. “Well then,” she gestured that he should continue his walk, she moved beside him. “What’s troubling you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Dr. Erksine, he said…” his jaw worked over unspoken words for a moment. “He said that the serum makes the good better and the bad worse. Magnifies evr’thing. I just…I get why he thinks I’m good. But…”

“You think that there is enough bad in you that it will not work?”

“Yeah.”

“I can hardly believe you’ve got a bad bone in your body, Rogers.”

“But I do. I’ve got a temper. I’m not patient. I get into fights. I—“

Peggy put a hand out as they neared the door of his barrack. “None of those things are bad. They’re human nature. And you certainly have enough self-awareness and temperance to wrangle all those things in.” He sighed. “You are a good candidate, Rogers. You’re a good man.” She indicated the door. “You should get some rest. We’ll be leaving for Brooklyn quite early.”

He smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes, looking rather the opposite of a smile. “Good night, Agent Carter.”

Peggy lay in her bed in the officers’ quarters. Unable to sleep. Unable to clear her head of him.

_Good night, Agent Carter._

Her body felt flushed and warm. Her skin prickled like she’d touched a socket.

“This is ridiculous.”

She shucked the army drab shorts she’d taken to sleeping in over her time with the SSR. Sometimes, wrapped in a soldier’s garb, it was easy to forget that she was, in fact, a woman.

_Good night, Agent Carter._

It wasn’t nothing.

She was already slick, hair tangled with it, when she ran her red-tipped fingers through her folds. She huffed out a breath, drawing the next in sharply as she dragged a finger up over her clitoris. She rubbed slowly. Her toes curled, calves tensed. She let out a groan and slammed her lips shut again, teeth knocking together, as foot steps passed in the hall—Philips’ characteristic gait. She drew her thighs tight, hand trapped, flesh throbbing with the beat of her heart, and waited for the sound to fade, a door to shut.

_Good night, Agent Carter._

She let her legs fall open; releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She let her fingers begin to glide, listened to the soft, wet sounds in the still and the darkness.

_Good night, Agent Carter._

There was a certain beauty about him, something he seemed completely unaware of. Something masculine and feminine rolled together to make something so essentially _Rogers_ that none of the other men she’d ever been attracted to had ever possessed.

Peggy hitched up her shirt, the Reserve’s wings spread across her chest, let her not otherwise occupied hand smooth over her stomach, relishing the feel of her nails dragging softly over her skin. She drew a knee up to her chest as she turned to her side, hand settling over her bosom; thumb setting to work at the sensitive flesh.

_Good night, Agent Carter._

She eased a finger inside. In and out. Slower. Faster. A second. She crooked them in, a _come hither_ gesture. Come hither, closer to the edge.

Firmer. Faster. More deliberate. Hitting that spot, ridged and taut. Thumb pressing down over that bundle of nerves, making her thighs shake and her stomach flutter.

_Good night, Agent Carter._

An amused smile. Lashes brushing against high, angular cheeks. Long fingers resting against a trigger guard. Off-kilter but purposeful stride. Mischievous glint in pale blue eyes.

She muffled her cry, pressed her face into her thin, army-issued pillow. Wetness gushed into her hand, trickled down in the crease where buttock met thigh. She sucked in shallow breaths, listened to the ringing in her ears.

_Good night, Agent Carter._

The car ride back to New York was awkward. She curled her toes inside her shoes, tensed her legs, and tried to focus her frayed nerves. He chattered. Bounced his knee nervously. Folded and unfolded his hands. Pointed out landmarks he thought she didn’t know of and should.

They stood together for a moment in front of the closed doors to the laboratory, waiting for clearance. “Agent Carter?”

“Yes?”

“I have this…” He fished in his pocket, produced a folded sheet of paper. “If this stuff kills me,” he let out a huff of laughter. “I wanted to give you this.” He passed the paper toward her. Peggy unfolded it carefully, smoothing the creases out of the small sketch of her profile.

“Thank you.” She smiled. “Steve.” He smiled briefly and turned to face forward, squared himself up. She let her hand fall to his shoulder for a moment. “It’s not going to kill you. I’ve got that on good authority.” He nodded and they stepped through the doors and she slipped the page into her pocket.

That was it. When he came out the other side of this, she was inviting him to the Stork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no doubt in my mind that Peggy was planning to eat that boy alive from the start.
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback.


	6. Challenge Five: Oral Sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre- and Post-Serum.  
> Nobody dies. Everything is sunshine.  
> Except it's not because I am a horrible person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and forth a bit between Peggy's and Steve's voices. To to keep everything tidy there are *** to designate the changes.
> 
> This is a companion to the previous challenge and also briefly references the First Time challenge.

They put half the lights in Brooklyn out.

The residents were in an uproar. Shops and restaurants and pubs were forced to close. “If ya’d given me the goddamned generators, this wouldn’ta happened!” Phillips slammed down the telephone. It had been a whole day before the lights had come back on in the brownstone that the SSR had quickly rented after it became evident that the procedure would have to be postponed. “Carter!”

“Yes, Colonel?”

“I’m going to find a bar and I’m going to drink a beer. Possibly several. Then I am going to come back here and sleep it the hell off.” Peggy raised a brow. Phillips was tired of being screwed over by the puffed up political pricks that controlled the funding he needed to support Erskine’s research and run his unit. The generators and resulting blackout had been the last straw. He looked at her hard for a long moment, seeming to deflate under her scrutiny. “Would you like to come with me?” He was almost meek in his offer. He knew she dealt with just as much, that her job was just as frustrating at times, especially acting as a sort of unofficial Allied Forces liaison.

She smiled and held his jacket out to him. “No, Colonel, thank you. I’ve got quite a bit of correspondence to get through tonight. And I don’t think it would be very fair to Rogers.”

“So bring ‘im too. Kid deserves a stiff drink.”

“Abraham will rupture a blood vessel.”

Phillips scoffed and collected his wallet and a spare key to the spacious dwelling. “Suit yourself. Don’t work to hard.”

Peggy laughed lightly, “Yes, sir.” She listened to the door closed firmly as she sat down at the kitchen table to set to work.

The light outside burned low, twilight setting in. She had not heard movement from the smaller apartment upstairs in some time. Her eyes fell to the date book beside the stack of letters and telegrams and requisitions she had been plowing through, making her feel like a glorified secretary. The worn edges of the folded page from Rogers’ sketchbook peeked out from the top.

Peggy was bored silly.

Perhaps Steve was as well. He’d been left largely alone, forbidden to venture out without an escort for the fear of something happening to their perfect candidate. Especially a perfect candidate with an admitted history of getting into fights.

She knocked softly on the door at the top of the stairs before she opened it. “Rogers?” The living space was dark. No light came from the hall that led to the bathroom and bedroom. It was quiet. Peggy moved toward the kitchen, half wondering if Rogers had gone out on his own, slipped off quietly. Perhaps he’d deserted. No, that wasn’t his style. Perhaps he’d gone home, even if it was against orders. He was from here. Maybe he still had some friends that he would want to see. The image of shocked faces reacting to the image of Rogers in his crisp uniform both amused and angered her.

She could hear soft snoring from the other side of the swinging door. Light bled around the edges. She opened it to find Rogers sitting at the table; head leaned against a hand, fast asleep. She drew her lips in, pressing her mouth into a line to keep from laughing. He was, quite frankly, precious.

What little flesh there was on his face was smushed to the side by his fist. Plump lips slightly parted. Preposterously long lashes resting against his cheeks. Floppy blonde hair falling carelessly across his forehead.

It certainly wasn’t nothing. The _things_ she wanted to do with him. To him. The places she could imagine those lips going. She smoothed out the front of her blouse. Willed the heat in her cheeks to dissipate.

When she approached the table, almost unwilling to wake him—in spite of the shaky, shallow breaths he was drawing he just looked so _peaceful_ , a look she hadn’t seen on him since the day he arrived at camp—she noticed that his sketchbook was open in front of him. His long, slender fingers rested across the spread of the pages, a picture of a train splashed across it in charcoal, vague figures with packages boarding it and milling about in the foreground. The level of detail astonished her. She assumed it drawn from memory. She couldn’t believe his eyesight was truly that poor, either, if he noticed all those tiny features and reproduced them.

“Rogers?” His eyelashes fluttered. She leaned across the table and patted his shoulder gently. “Rogers?” He woke with a start, his eyes opening wide with startle as his hand shot up to grip her wrist.

He drew in a sharp breath, “Agent Carter!” He released her from his grip and shot out of his chair at attention. “I’m sorry! I didn’t realize—am I late? Have we started? Is it happening now?”

***

He was going to be court marshaled. He was sure of it. And kicked out of the program. Relegated to a desk job if not booted out of the Army entirely.

Agent Carter raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him. Her lips—red? Yes. He was sure they were red. Her red lips turned up at the edges as if she was amused. His heart thundered in his ears. He fought to keep his eyes on her face. No. Just over her shoulder, that was easier. He’d never seen her like this. She was always completely put together. Perfectly pressed and starched and buttoned. Hair curled and pinned and unmoving.

Agent Carter this way was a completely new creature all together.

Hair pinned back only to keep it from her face. Blouse untucked, top buttons opened. She was definitely barefoot. He didn’t have to look quite as far up at her. Soft slacks with a subtle pleat at the front rather than the severe uniform skirt. She looked comfortable. At home. It was strange and beautiful and made the hairs on the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

“Rogers, don’t be silly. You can relax. Nothing’s started.” She pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and slipped down into it. She looked from him to his chair and back. He sat, acutely aware of the rattle in his chest when he took a deep breath, praying an attack wasn’t looming close. “The Colonel has gone out. The doctor has yet to make an appearance. He’s been hold up in the laboratory with Stark.” She crossed one leg over the other, leaned back casually in her seat. “I was bored. Thought you’d like some company up here as well.” Her brow drew together in a concerned expression. “Are you sleeping well?”

Steve shook his head, “No, ma’am.” He opened the tin he kept his drawing materials in and placed his charcoals and pencils back inside. “Not since Dr. Erskine told me ‘e wanted ta use me.” He huffed out a laugh. “I’ve never really slept well, though. ‘s nothin’ new.”

She pursed her lips. Her eyes moved from his face to the table. She reached across, her fingertips hovering over the edge of his sketchbook. “May I?” He nodded and nudged it toward her.

“I hope…I hope the drawing, giving it to you, wasn’t inappropriate.”

“Oh, gosh. It was highly inappropriate, actually.” His stomach turned over. “I didn’t mind. It’s a lovely picture. And the sentiment was quite touching.” Her expression softened. “It isn’t often that someone looks at me and actually sees me.”

***

“I see you.”

She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. She continued to flip through the pages of the small sketchbook. It was filled with scenes of Camp Leigh, small portraits of Phillips and Erskine and some young man she didn’t recognize, studies of her and the few WAC ladies in the office. There were sketches of what she assumed was his neighborhood, his apartment. A young girl. The same girl with the unidentified man, the appeared to be siblings. Detailed drawings of each of the firearms he’d learned to use, put together and broken down into components. Birds. Flowers. Leaves. Clouds. A rather unappetizing-looking meal from the mess hall. Just before the train scene was a cartoonier picture of whom she could only assume was Abraham hovering over the Frankenstein monster.

“Is your couch more comfortable than mine?” He shrugged as she handed the book back to him. “Let’s go see.” He picked up the tin and carried both objects with him into the living room. He made himself busy turning on lamps while she settled onto one end of the couch. When he sat, he looked painfully awkward. “R—Steve.” His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “This is a purely social call. _Relax._ ” He did, thankfully. He propped and elbow up on the arm of the couch, one ankle came up and rested against the opposite knee. “So what have you been doing up here all on your lonesome? You’re so quiet. I kept forgetting you were upstairs.” It was a complete lie. She was acutely aware of his presence. His closeness.

He shrugged. He was always shrugging like he thought what he had to say didn’t really matter. “Not much to do when you’re not allowed to leave.”

“Oh, c’mon. What does the mysterious Steve Rogers do for entertainment?”

“Mysterious? Me?” His laugh was warm and deep.

“Indeed. You’re a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Part of the reason I like you.”

He smiled that infuriatingly earnest half-smile of his. “I like you too, Agent Carter.”

“Social call. Peggy.”

“Peggy.”

“So, what have you been doing?” Her eyes fell to the stack of books, clearly having traveled with him from camp.

“Just reading. Drawing. Trying to keep up with the newspapers. Sounds like things are getting heavy.”

“Things have been heavy for far longer than most people here realize, my friend.” She leaned forward and picked up a book off the top of the stack. “This is certainly an interesting selection for a strapping young man.” She made herself comfortable, shifting to tuck her feet beneath her.

His smile turned soft, gaze a little distant. “It was my ma’s book. She loved poetry.”

“Controversial poetry by scandalous poets?”

“Poetry with substance. Millay was one of her favorites. She loved all kinds of books, though. We had to burn a lot of them over the years. Winters in New York are almost as bad as the summers. But she never let go of the best ones. Heck, I learned to read with Emily Dickinson.”

“Very dark for a little boy.”

“Well, I didn’t understand it, obviously. But I liked the way the words felt in my mouth. When I started picking out my own books I’d read anything I could get my hands on. I was home from school at least once a week because I was too sick. In and out of the hospital more times than I can count. It was always nice to get lost in someone else’s adventures, pretend I was there.” Peggy nodded. She had similar sentiments even if her circumstances were quite different.

Minutes on the clock ticked away as they swam through poetry and music and cinema and art—oh! His reverence for art! —And baseball of all things. The man had an encyclopedic knowledge of all that was the Brooklyn Dodgers. Players. Statistics. Rankings. _Everything._

He talked about each subject with equal enthusiasm. She almost felt guilty when she thought the rattling, wheezy breaths he drew in between run-on tellings to be adorable.

He finally ran out of steam.

She praised whatever God was out there for it. The way he focused on her mouth when she spoke was unnerving.

“Steve.” He smiled at her expectantly. “This has been one of the best evenings I’ve had in quite a while.”

He broke into a grin. “Me too.”

“Steve?” She swallowed down her nerves. “Can I be quite forward?”

“Ah’course. Purely a social call, remember?”

“I’d very much like to kiss you.” And rip that SSR tee shirt clean off his body. Heat flared through her cheeks when he looked away. “You are allowed to say no.”

“No.”

“Alright then.” She shifted and put a foot on the floor, intending to stand. To leave. To vacate this situation that she’d just managed to make exceedingly awkward.

“No…I meant…No, I didn’t wan’ta say no.” He chewed his bottom lip. He smoothed his hair down to the left. He straightened the legs of his pants. “You’re…you’re…and I’m just…”

“You think it inappropriate because I am an agent and you are an enlisted man and Erskine’s subject?” He nodded. “It is.” She paused, trying to pull her thoughts together. “And in spite of that, I find myself completely unable to push you out of my thoughts.” There was that lopsided smile.

“I’m findin’ it hard ta care about what’s appropriate, ta be honest.” He turned his gaze full on her. “I’ve lived my whole life feelin’—knowing—that my next asthma attack could be m’last, or that my iron could go too low, or that I’d finally loose my colors—my sight—my hearin’.” He looked down at his hands in his lap, scrutinizing them. “So I tend ta do what I want. If it’s poss’ble. And fuck the rest.” His eyes widened for a moment but he didn’t apologize for the obscenity. He looked at her, almost angrily. “I think I’ll take that kiss, Peggy.”

He leaned toward her, paused, held her gaze while he waited for her to initiate.

When their lips met all that Peggy could find coherent thought for was the texture of his lips. Soft. Full. Succulent.

The hard lines of his jaw when she touched his face.

The warmth of his hands when they stopped fluttering around pointlessly and cradled her head. The pressure of the circles his thumbs were rubbing into the base of her skull.

He pulled away when she groaned into his mouth. His chest was heaving. His cheeks were flushed. The spider-silk strand of saliva connecting them was positively _lewd._

“Do…do you want…ta move…” He swallowed hard. “To a more comfortable spot?” She grinned and nodded. He practically leapt over the couch to show her to the bedroom.

But he was tender when he pressed her into the mattress. When he grew bold and kneaded her flanks with his fingers. When he smoothed her hair away from her face.

He made the most gloriously shocked expression when her knee found his crotch and pressed gently while it moved. “Too much?”

“No.” His voice was strained, his hips moving ever so slightly and involuntarily. “But I don’t have a rubber. And I’d prefer not ta have sticky shorts.” He made a strangled sound. “If ya keep doin’ that…”

She chuckled. “Apologies.” She eased her leg down between them. “You know, you should keep a few on hand.”

“For occasions like this?”

“To put over your firearm in the field. Keep it dry.”

“Good to know.” He laughed. His breathing grew more even. His lips trailed down her cheek. Roamed over her throat. His tongue made feather-light strokes against her collarbone. He hovered over her, hands hesitating at the buttons of her blouse. She nodded. Closed her eyes at the feel of his long fingers trailing down over the swell of her breast and over her stomach. The feel of his lips that followed.

He stopped at her navel. She cursed silently. “I haven’t done much. But I’d like to think I’m pretty good at what I’ve done.”

“You’re a cocky bastard.”

He laughed, “That’s what they keep tellin’ me.” She nodded again when his fingertips traced the line of her belt.

Things got hazy.

Soft lips against her stomach. Her thighs. A grip at her backside. Warm huffs of breath on her skin.

She shivered when he moved his mouth against her. When the flat of his tongue parted her folds. When fire pooled in her belly and at the soles of her feet. When his lips found her clitoris and _sucked._

Steve was a tease.

He was a rotten scoundrel and a tease.

And her skin was crawling. Like sparks of lightening were dancing through her veins.

Just when she thought she was _right there_ he would pull away. Fingers and lips and tongue and teeth wound roam to thighs and stomach and backs of knees.

Her body tensed when the unwelcome thought of the Colonel’s return paddled by in the stream of incoherent thoughts in her head.

“Did I do something wrong?” She drew in a shaky breath.

“No.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

Philips wouldn’t be back until morning. She was sure of it. “Don’t you dare.”

He looked up at her through the heavy curtain of his eyelashes before dipping his face between her legs one again.

He _was_ good. And _oh_ she was close.

She ran her fingers though his hair, enjoying the way it tickled her skin as he moved and—

***

Agent Carter—Peggy’s thighs trembled and closed around him. He almost missed the persistent stroke of her bare foot up and down his spine. Almost. The rush of warmth and wet down over his chin made up for it. The way she said his name, the single syllable broken in the middle, cancelled out any other feeling.

He waited until she was finished. Touching her gently. Wiping his face discretely against the blanket when she threw her arm carelessly over her face.

He felt…

He didn’t know what he felt.

Empty? Alone?

When she pulled away from him. She had to get back downstairs. It wouldn’t do to be seen like this.

He understood.

Didn’t mean it didn’t make him feel like absolute _shite._

But the way she looked at him the next day, the way she hesitated before she followed instructions and went up the stairs to the viewing booth.

It made his chest tight with longing and warm with hope.

***

Peggy wasn’t sure whether to devote all of her capacity toward happiness that Steve had survived and the experiment had seemingly worked or toward the dread bubbling up within her that it would all surely mean he would be taken away from her.

It was such a drastic change.

But he was still there. The fire in his eyes and the set of his jaw was still the same.

In the end he was swept away by all the wrong people. Abraham and Phillips dreams and plans and strategies—Steve’s desire to be on the front line and do his duty—dashed in favor of turning him into a brightly colored puppet.

At least he seemed content. She soldiered on. Pushed her feelings aside. Did her job and did it damned well.

When she saw him next he was performing in blue tights with wings on the sides of his head and failing to raise the morale of the remnants of the 107th.

Officially, she wasn’t there. Officially, they never spoke.

Unofficially, the ghost of a man she saw sitting on his own, scratching away at a sketchbook broke her heart.

***

Bucky screamed as the side of the train car they were fighting in blew out and his body was sucked away through the force of the air and the push of the blast. Steve dealt quickly with the determined HYDRA agent and eased himself out of the opening. Bucky was clinging to the wreckage of the wall of the car. “Don’t let go!”

“Don’t you fuckin’ worry! I ain’t got any plans to!”

Steve edged further out, keeping his body close to the side to counteract the drag of the air as they sped along on the tracks. He looked back over his shoulder; they were quickly approaching the mouth of a tunnel cut into the mountainside. He leaned out carefully and slid his boot along the corrugated wall. The rail Bucky was hanging onto shuddered. Bucky’s eyes grew wide.

“Grab my hand!”

Bucky strained upward, just barely making contact before the rail broke free. His body swung out. Steve gripped his wrist tightly—much more content with leaving Bucky bruised than falling into the valley below.

The tunnel swallowed their car as Steve pulled Bucky inside. He screamed again, the sound echoing deafeningly in the confinement of the rock outside and the space of the car, his body trapped between.

Suddenly he was free, tumbling with Steve onto the floor. His coat was tattered, torn away from his back along with the top layers of padding and protection beneath, those that remained quickly soaking through with dark red. He sounded like an animal dying as he clutched at what remained of his left arm. “Fuck!” He just kept repeating it. His face was flushed red, a mess of tears and snot, when Steve propped him against the wall Bucky had shot from at the beginning of their foray.

He’d refused to be sent home. He was laid up in the hospital back in England for quite a while, fighting off infection, healing up. He called. He telegrammed. He wrote. He harassed doctors and nurses and officers alike. Somehow, he negotiated his way back into the field. Steve was stunned when Bucky swaggered into camp, rifle slung over his shoulder as if nothing had changed. Same worn in pants and boots. Brand new blue coat, still stiff in the collar with its freshness. He almost didn’t notice the unmoving wooden fingers peaking out from the bottom of the left sleeve.

The first few weeks were uneasy and tentative. Not every shot landed. There were close calls as Bucky adjusted to the foreignness of his movements, figured out how best to position each finger and how tightly the thumb spring needed to be curved.

But they made it.

The whole damned team made it.

The Red Skull wasn’t as lucky.

They were still out in the field when they got word that the War had officially ended. They’d whooped and hollered and danced and talked about what they were going to do when they got home until the sun came up. The trek back to camp was never so light and free, even dotted with skirmishes and hostile holdouts.

“I’m gonna ask her, Buck.” Steve helped him unbuckle the leather holster that held the prosthetic in place as they sat on a cot in the officers’ quarters that had been cleared out to accommodate the Commandos. He winced as Steve smoothed Vaseline over the raw skin across his back and shoulders. Bucky chucked the prosthetic toward the end of the cot and rubbed life back into the part of his arm that remained, short and scarred.

He grinned, “Not if I do it first.”

“You’re horrible.”

Peggy was waiting for him at the dock when they arrived. She’d gone back to New York ahead of the rest of them on Philips’ orders, paving the way for the Strategic Scientific Reserve to become an independent force, something bigger. Steve thought her face was going to split entirely in two she was smiling so widely and brightly.

She wrapped Steve in a tight embrace. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to let her go. He wasn’t entirely sure he was going to be able to keep it together. “’Scuse me, ma’am. Returnin’ war heroes, here. The punk doesn’t deserve all th’tention.” Peggy pulled away and embraced each of the Commandos in turn. They had become such a close-knit family; it felt like they truly were brothers returning home. Stark met them later on in the evening for dinner.

They went down to the courthouse the next morning.

There was a line.

Until word spread that Captain America was waiting to be married.

They spent the evening tearing up the floor at the Stork. Steve was a quick study, even if he did step on Peggy’s feet more times than he’d like to admit.

“Hey, best man gets a dance with the bride!” Steve laughed and said he was sure that wasn’t actually a tradition. “Yeah, well, it’s startin’ now.” Peggy laughed as Bucky swept her away, his dance frame as perfect as it ever was. “Thank you,” he whispered as he pulled her close.

“For what?”

“Believing. Gettin’ me back over there. Lettin’ me do my job.”

One side of her mouth curled into a secretive smile.

***

It was the summer of ’51. They’d rented a house in the Hamptons. They’d saved for a year and called in several favors to get the airy home near the water all to themselves. No UN meetings. No political hobnobbing or elbow rubbing. No SHIELD missions. Just Peggy and Steve lay out on a quilt in the sand watching as their son chased Barnes in and out of the waves.

The boy squealed as the water frothed around his knees and soaked into the rolled up legs of his trousers. It was his final few weeks of innocence and carefree time before he began school in the too-quickly approaching autumn. “Uncle James!” He dragged out the vowel sounds. Barnes squatted down, bouncing as his knees bent, leaning an elbow against them to balance. His linen pant-legs were soaked even though they were rolled up above his knees—a hazard of chasing a child in and out of the water. His sky-blue shirt billowed behind him in the breeze, left sleeve pinned neatly up around the end of his upper arm, prosthetic left back at the house in favor of an even tan.

“Yes, Tiny James?”

“We shouldn’t have named him that.” Steve chucked and asked why. “Look at how smug Barnes gets.” She leaned her head against Steve’s shoulder, sighing contentedly. “Do you think they can handle each other alone for a little while?”

Steve looked down at her out of the corner of his eye, “I don’t see why not.”

James shrieked as he was hoisted into the air by an ankle, giggling as he hung upside down, shirt falling to show off the rounded little belly Steve was so proud of—proud that his son ate a full meal three times a day, proud that he looked healthy and robust, relieved that he’d yet to show signs of the many illnesses Steve battled as a child. Peggy couldn’t figure out how to tell him she suspected James’ back wasn’t quite as straight as it should be or that he couldn’t name his colors. School would help. Perhaps she was wrong. The check-up she had scheduled for the week they returned to Brooklyn would decide matters.

“No! _I’m_ the dragon! You’re supposed to be the princess! Princesses can’t fight dragons!” He stuck his bottom lip out, looking so like his father even with the blood rushing to his head and his floppy chestnut colored curls dangling wildly.

“Kid, if I learned anything about girls from knowin’ yer ma, it’s that they’re more’en capable of fightin’ their own dragons.”

“James—“ Both turned toward the sound of Steve’s voice, “Philip!”

“Yes, Papa?”

“Mind your uncle. We’re going for a walk back up to the house.”

“Yes, Papa.” He curled his body upward, gripping the front of Bucky’s shirt to pull himself up.

Peggy chuckled as she watched James climb up onto Bucky’s shoulders, little fingers gripping his hair for balance and making him wince. “Someone should teach that child Barnes isn’t a tree to climb.”

“You do it. You know I can’t tell him no.” Steve shook sand out of the quilt and folded it haphazardly. “Bucky doesn’t mind.”

Peggy leaned against the door when she closed it. “Ah. Hear that?” Steve raised a brow. “Quiet.” He set the blanket down on the table beside them. She pulled him close, ran her hands down the front of his shirt. With fingers hooked into his belt loops she drew him flush against her. “I feel like I haven’t been alone with you in days.” He leaned down to kiss her, tilting her chin up and dragging his lips across her jaw. “I feel like I haven’t touched you in days.”

“We’re alone now. You’re touching me now.”

She chuckled, the sound low and dark in her belly. “No, I do believe that you’re the one touching me.” She slid her hand down the front of his pants, brushing her knuckles gently but persistently against him through the fabric. His head fell heavily on her shoulder. “Oh look, I think I’ve solved that discrepancy.”

“You certainly have.” He thumbed open the top several buttons of her shirt. Calloused fingers brushed against the sliver of skin exposed between the waist of her pants and the edges of the tied up tails of her shirt. With the knot undone, those fingers roamed. “And what do you—“ He groaned into the junction between her neck and shoulder when her ministrations became more methodical. “What do you plan on doing with the quiet and the alone and the touching?”

“Whatever I want, Captain.”

She could feel the tug of his lips into a smile against her skin. “Oh really? And what do you want?”

“For you to get to the bedroom and take your clothes off.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He continued to mouth at her neck. Oh, how he knew just where to put those lips to work.

“I suggest you follow that order, soldier.”

“Oh, that’s how it’s gonna be?”

“That’s exactly how it’s going to be.” He pulled away, if somewhat reluctantly, and moved through the living room to the back of the house where the bedroom they were staying in was, waggling his eyebrows at her over his shoulder as he went.

Peggy stood in front of the large window in the living room, books and paper and worn down crayons—particularly the red and blue—strewn over the window seat. She watched as James purposefully patted down a mound of sand to encase Barnes’ feet and shins.

“Mrs. Rogers, did you forget about me?” Peggy rolled her eyes and made her way toward the bedroom.

He was lounged casually across the bed, staring unseeingly through the window, curtains billowing in the warm breeze. Sometimes, it the stillness of moments like this, Peggy thought that she was Mrs. Rogers to that petite man she met at Camp Leigh. He was still there. He was still at the core—Steve was still Steve, even if a little disenchanted with the world after all that he had seen a done.

She crawled onto the bed beside him. Slid her hands along bare legs and flank. Traced patterns on sun-freckled shoulders. Ran her fingers through sun-bleached hair. He leaned into her touch, turning his face to meet hers. When she kissed him he tasted like the salt spray from the waves.

“Why do you still get to have clothes on?”

Peggy smiled wickedly, hand trailing back down over the hard planes of Steve’s stomach, fingers brushing against his half hardness. “Just watch,” she whispered. She couldn’t help but be flattered by the awed look he still gave her when she slipped her shirt off her shoulders. Her cheeks flushed with warmth when he took himself in hand, stroking himself to full arousal as he watched her disrobe.

She found herself enveloped in the warmth of him when she crawled into bed, like the sun was in his skin. Strong arms and legs wrapped around her, trapped her between the heated body and the cool top sheet on the bed while he kissed her breathless. That was something he had a talent for since the start—taking her breath away.

“Do you—do—do you remember—the first—time we were together?” She asked between long, languid movements of mouth on mouth and tongue over lips and teeth.

“Little village. Important church. Almost finished before it even started.”

“Not that first time.”

“The purely social call.”

“Mm. That one.”

Fingertips glided over her back, following the curve of her behind and gripping her thigh to pull her leg up. “Do you want…?” The hand left her thigh, fingers running gently between her folds.

“No.” She took a sharp breath when he touched her in _just_ the right way. “Not right now, at least.” A sharp sound of his own cut off Steve’s throaty chuckle when Peggy’s wormed her hand between their bodies and swiped her thumb across his head. “I just enjoy remembering it.” He allowed her to maneuver herself on top of him, didn’t resist when she placed a hand on his chest and pushed him down into the pillows. Large hands settled onto her hips, kneading her flesh while she straddled his stomach. “Just relax.” She picked up a hand, laid her lips against the rough palm. She held his gaze as she sucked his thumb into her mouth, rolling her tongue against the digit while his nostrils flared and a blush spread from the tips of his ears down over his chest.

She released his thumb with an exaggerated _pop_. “If you tug on my ears I _will_ stop.”

She laughed when he gripped the brass bars of the headboard. A slow smile spread across his face. He looked so incredibly young—like a teenager thrilled at getting a girl alone. “Yes ma’am,” he whispered.

His breathing became deep and slow as she moved down his body leaving a trail of kisses and nips over every bit of skin that demanded her attention. Peggy reveled in how responsive he was, took special pride in the way his eyes closed and fluttered, the way his mouth alternately dropped open or pressed closed—took special pride in the fact that only she got to do the things that made him make those faces, that he belonged to her in every way that mattered.

She paid special attention to the ridge of his oblique muscles, enjoying the mouse-like squeak that pinching the sensitive skin gently between her teeth produced. She relished the feel of his baby-soft hair on her cheek as she moved between his thighs and continued in her quest to unravel him. She hovered over him, letting him feel the warmth of her breath. She giggled when his cock twitched. “Jesus _Christ_ , Peg, stop teasing!” She looked up and could just about see the edge of his chin with his head tilted back and chest heaving. The muscles in his arms tensed deliciously as he gripped the brass with white-knuckled intensity.

Peggy loved pulling him apart this way. Making him wait. Making him tremble. She wondered often if he was this way before the serum, before they were together. It wasn’t as if he was a blushing virgin when she met him. She wondered if any other person had seen him this way? With his back arched so beautifully as she swiped the flat of her tongue up the length of his shaft. With his thighs practically vibrating. With his feet curved like a dancer’s and shoved down into the mattress like he was trying to keep from falling.

She had the distinct feeling when the sound of his keening hit her ears when she finally took him in that the answer to all of those questions was a resounding _no._

It was their loss.

No one would ever see how exquisite _Steve Rogers_ was when he completely gave himself over. Just her. All her.

She planted a hand against his clenching abdominals and pulled away. “I said: relax.” He was sucking breath in through gritted teeth.

“How am I supposed to relax when you’re doing that?”

She answered by engulfing the head of his cock in the wet heat of her mouth once again, humming her pleasure at his frustration and drawing a strangled sound out of him.

She continued to tease, alternating between hard suction and feather-light touches with the tip of her tongue.

She didn’t mind the way he pushed his hips forward. Or the leg that came down over her, trapping her shoulders in the crook of his knee when she pressed a thumb gently into that sensitive spot just behind his testicles.

She glanced up to catch him watching her, that look of awe replaced with something much more debauched as she eased him further in. She squeezed her eyes shut and fought the tears that slipped over her cheeks when he hit the back of her throat. His hand found hers and entwined their fingers.

“Peggy, I—“

“Mmhm.” She pulled back, hollowing her cheeks as she went.

His hips rocked as he came, Peggy swallowing as best she could before releasing him. She lay there with her cheek against his thigh, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he caught his breath, feeling the pressure of his fingertips pressing into her knuckles.

“Steve, darling.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re crushing me.” He laughed and moved his leg off of her. She slithered up into his arms, settling wither head propped up on her fist over him. “You look obscene.”

He craned his neck up to kiss her. “You taste obscene.” There was a wicked sparkle to his eye.

They got thirty more glorious minutes alone before the sound of James’ feet pounding across the floorboards in the hall roused them.

“Whoah, buddy! Hol’up!” The floor creaked under Barnes’ weight. “I think yer ma and dad are takin’a nap.”

“But it’s still daytime. And they’re grown-ups.”

“Well…it’s a grown-up nap.” Barnes chuckled at his own joke on the other side of the door. “That’s what boring, old, married people do.” James huffed in annoyance and appeared to allow himself to be led away. “C’mon. I’ve got sand in awful places and yer soakin’ wet. Let’s go get some clean clothes.” They listened to the sound of the boy and his namesake trudging up the stairs.

“I suppose we should get out of bed.” Steve groaned in protest. “I’m sure they’re hungry.” His stomach grumbled as if on cue.

Dinner on the porch was quiet and light, punctuated with sneaky innuendo and waggling eyebrows from Barnes.

“You know, Tiny James,” he said as he tucked into his third hot dog. “Yer dad here used to hate these.”

“Why?” He asked around a full mouth.

“Once, when we were a lot younger, we stuffed ourselves full of ‘em at Coney Island.” He grinned in Steve’s direction. “Then I made ‘im ride the Cyclone with me.”

“What happened?”

“Those hot dogs didn’t stay in his belly.”

“Eww!” He made a face, drawing the sound out dramatically.

“Well, Buck, you didn’t keep ‘em down that much longer after you sucked down that Coke.”

“Gentlemen, must we discuss this now?”

“No, Mama.”

“I’m glad at least one of you has table manners.” Peggy carded her fingers through her son’s salt-stiff hair, pushing it back away from his face. “Howard should be here tomorrow.” Each of the Commandos and Philips in turn had stopped over with their spouses and children at some point over the course of the summer, spending a day or several, whatever schedules would allow.

“When’er you gonna let him build you an arm? You could be part robot. Man of the future!”

Barnes chuckled and shook his head. He lifted the prosthetic off of the table where it rested, fingers curled to hold a utensil when needed. “I don’t need it. I was fine with this then when I told him no and I’m still fine with it now.”

Steve rolled his eyes at the stubbornness. It was all in good spirit, even if Howard was a tad persistent about it at times.

“Hey kiddo, did you pick out clothes for church tomorrow?” James nodded and slid out of his chair to help Steve clear the table. He rushed ahead to yank open the screen door. Steve placed the few dishes they’d used on the counter and returned with a carton of ice cream and a stack of bowls. “What color tie did you pick?” Steve often matched. He found it inordinately funny.

“Green!”

He didn’t own a green tie.

Steve’s grip on the spoon he was holding tightened. He finished filling the bowl on the top of the stack and placed it down in front of the boy. His jaw clenched. Nostrils flared.

He walked with measured steps back into the house.

“What did I do?”

“Nothing, my love.”

“But why is Papa mad?” Peggy pulled him out of his chair and into her lap and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head.

“He’s not mad.”

“Too many hot dogs, buddy. Didn’t even have ta ride the Cyclone this time!” James was staring down at his rapidly melting bowl of ice cream, spoon clutched in his fist. Peggy was at a loss. She ached for Steve. She understood his disappointment. But she wasn’t about to walk away from the upset child in her arms. “I’ve got it.” Barnes ruffled James’ hair as he stood and followed Steve inside.

***

“Punk.”

“Not now, Bucky.” Steve was sat on the kitchen floor, back against the fridge.

“Yes, now, Steve.”

“I thought…I thought the serum would stop that. I thought he wouldn’t have to go through all of that.”

“But, St—“

When James had come into the word fat and red-faced from screaming, Steve could have died of happiness. He’d been so hopeful. “No. If I thought there was a possibility that I’d pass all of that on, I wouldn’t have had kids. I wouldn’t have…I wouldn’t have asked her to marry me. She could have had a chance for someone better. Could have had healthy kids with someone— _Ow!_ ” Bucky’s face was screwed up in fury when he pinched Steve’s arm.

“Knock that shit off, Rogers. She loves you. She loves that kid. You would both give your lives for him. So shut up. So what if ‘e’s fuckin’ col’ah blind? You were. And ya got by fine.”

“That’s not the only thing, Buck, and you know it. You’ve seen his back, the way he walks.” He sniffed hard and swiped at his face with the back of his hand. “And he’s so small. Just like me at that age.”

“So what?”

“What do you mean _so what_?”

“He’s got good feet. Hearin’ like a hawk. No ulcers. Good color. Great grip.” Bucky huffed out a laugh. “And I watched that kid when you and Peg went to Russia that week and missed ya damned extraction. Christ I know that kid’s got a set a’ lungs. And Tiny James has got a hell of a bett’ah chance than you did. Yer ma was a fuckin’ saint, but every’un knew she couldn’t afford all the doctor bills and all the medication and special food. Shit, sometimes _I_ was surprised you made it. But he has such a better chance, Steve. Ya drill ‘im on colors before school starts. Or…wait a year. Get ‘im surgery. Teach ‘im yer’self or get ‘im a tutor.”

Steve grimaced at the nickname. It only drew attention to his fears.

“Because that’s what every little boy wants. To be trapped in bed in a full body cast in constant pain and be subjected to weeks of surgeries. You think I haven’t been looking around?”

“Have you bothered ta talk to the kid’s ma? Ya know, that dame ya married?”

“No.”

“Look, when Stark leaves on Tuesday, I’m goin’ back ta the city with ‘im.”

“Why? We’ve got the house until the end of the month.”

“You guys need some time ta figure things out. Actually talk t’each other. Havin’ me around ain’t gonna help that.”

“But I…we like having you around, Jerk. Built in babysitter.”

“What, so ya can sneak off for a roll in the hay?” Steve chuckled. “Nah. I wanna see what all the fuss is for this big science show ‘e’s plannin’.”

“Thanks, Buck.”

“I didn’t do anything. Now get back out there before the whole cart’in melts.”

***

James wiggled free of her arms and clung to Steve’s legs when he came back out onto the porch. “I’m sorry, Papa. I won’t wear the green one, I promise.” Steve lifted the boy into his arms, cooing comforts at him.

“Just like your Uncle said: too many hot dogs. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. Historical note time! Do you have your notebooks ready? There will most definitely be a test later.
> 
> So, first off, I think that Steve totally would have gotten his clear love of reading from Sarah. I imagine that books were one of the few luxuries she allowed herself and that they helped her get through her pregnancy and raising Steve without her husband. And considering all of the chronic illnesses and disorders that Steve had, I imagine he spent a lot of time at home reading books and drawing the adventures he had in them. Tiny, cute, nerd Steve FTW.
> 
> The book Steve has out at the beginning is _A Few Figs From Thistles_ by Edna St. Vincent Millay. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer for poetry. She was also open about her bisexuality and affairs. That particular collection of poems published in 1920 was all about female sexuality and freedom. Edna was one of the earliest and most vocal feminists.
> 
> And just so there's no confusion: Steve is lip-reading. Poor kid is at least partially deaf. Geeze.
> 
> Bucky would have had the opportunity to be fitted for and use a fairly sophisticated prosthetic even way back then. The one that I envisioned while writing this was the Blatchford & Sons device.  
>   
> The company was based out of London and were established as specialists in artificial limb fabrication sincejust before the turn of the century. The arms were articulated so that the wearer could adjust the position and they typically had solid hands and a thumb on an adjustable spring to provide grip. Some models included fully articulated fingers, which is what I've given Bucky here so that he could still handle his firearm and be a sniper. But someone who got their arm ripped off would _never_ have been sent back into the field, you say. Well, Bucky is special, dammit. Suspend a little disbelief.
> 
> Tiny James has the same color blindness I've given Steve previously throughout my work: Tritanopia, blue-yellow blindness. In short, it means that he mixes up blue with green and yellow with violet. This group actually has fewer problems with color based tasks in every day life because of the fact that we use the red/bad, green/good system.
> 
> And finally, in the 1950s, scoliosis treatment was hell. Dr. John Cobb was the leading expert in the field. His method included a full body turnbuckle cast. The child was completely immobilized and had to stay in bed as a result for about a year while the treatment went on. The cast covered from the head down to one thigh and was cut in half after drying so that a big lever with a screw tightener could be inserted. The screw was tightened over a period of weeks to correct the curve of the spine. After that, surgeons cut a port hole into the cast to perform operations through. Anesthesia wasn't that great at the time and a patient could only be put under for a couple of hours. As a result, surgeries had to be done over the course of weeks. After that, it took another nine months to recover. _After that_ the child had to re-learn how to walk. So, you can imagine Steve's hesitation to put Tiny James through all of that. 
> 
> Oh! And Tiny James is named after Bucky and Colonel Philips. Because reasons. And the "big science show" is the first ever Stark Expo in Flushing Meadows, Queens in 1954.
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback!


	7. Challenge Six: Clothed Getting Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** Brief abortion mention, no follow-through.

“I’m not going, Steve.” His body whipped around, his rucksack making a clatter against his body. She’d been to the doctor that morning.

“What’s wrong?” He snatched the bag off of his shoulder and dropped it on the bed. Peggy put a hand up to stop him. His face was contorted with concern. “I won’t go. I’ll stay and take care of you. Bucky can handle himself just fine. They can send Jones with him. I—“

They were off to Russia in a few hours. They’d be traveling by boat to London and then off to Moscow from there. SHIELD had gotten wind of a new project in development. Something called The Red Room. Peggy was meant to travel with Steve and Barnes. But that wasn’t going to happen now.

When she was carrying James, it had been an ordeal. She’d continued to work, light field missions and leading from the home office. She’d powered through the nausea and fatigue and body aches. She’d kept fit, exercised meticulously. Until she’d almost lost him. Bed rest and desk work after that. There had been so much spotting. He’d come a few weeks early in the end and scared everyone half to death. Steve refused to leave the hospital without the boy in his arms and Peggy at his side.

“I didn’t want to say anything until I was absolutely sure.” She closed her eyes and steeled herself. This hadn’t been planned. They were so careful. Neither one of them had wanted to have to witness or put another child through what James had been through. A year in bed, constant pain, dozens of surgeries. His asthma had become an issue after that. Steve felt like his worst fears had been realized. There had been a close call on a mission Peggy had run solo. She’d spent a few days in the hospital recovering. It was hard enough raising a child with being constantly called off by work, let alone the very real possibility that one day one or both of them may not come home. But there was Barnes and he’d sworn up and down that he’d watch out for James and—

Peggy took the folded card from her pocket and held it out between her fingers. Steve gave her a confused look and took it.

“Is this…”

“A Bufo.”

“But this means—“

“I’m pregnant Steve.” He stared down at the creased card with  **POSITIVE**  circled in red ink and looked like he was about to be ill. It was exactly what she’d feared. She took a deep breath and let it out purposefully. “Steve, please say something.”

It was only a few weeks. She could take care of it. They’d discussed it. Neither wanted to resort to that; but it had been such a close call for both Peggy and James, another was risky. But the available options were even riskier—for her health and both of their sanity.

His silence frightened her.

He opened and closed his mouth several times, gaping like a fish out of water. “I…” He folded the card carefully and tucked it into his breast pocket. He smiled at her and drew her in, crushing her in his embrace. “I couldn’t be happier.” His hands were shaking.

An hour later they were roused from bed by Barnes banging on their front door. “Rogers! Carter! C’mon, ya gotta drop the kid off with Bec!”

Steve righted his clothes and picked his rucksack back up. Peggy followed him to the door, her robe thrown over her shoulders, cinched tight at the waist. She would go into SHIELD, take over communications between headquarters and the American embassies overseas, anyone Steve and Bucky would need to rely on in a bind, find someone to fill her place in the field.

He paused in the doorway to kiss her one last time before walking out and clapping Barnes on the shoulder. “Change of plans, jerk.”

***

Howard had nearly blown up the laboratory. She’d asked him to be careful. Pleaded with him. Told him that if he got any of the technicians hurt she’d personally stick her foot directly up his arse. True to form, he’d done whatever the hell he’d wanted anyway.

Her hair was singed at the ends. She’d have to get it trimmed. She leaned against the inside of the front door to gather herself. The house was warm; the smell of the roast she’d set out that morning cooking in the oven permeated the air. She shucked her jacket and dropped her keys in the bowl near the door.

James was sitting very upright at the desk in the office Steve and Peggy shared. He looked like a doll in Steve’s chair—at the Captain's desk. She walked around beside him and pressed her lips to the crown of his head. “So what were your marks? Did all that studying this weekend pay off, my love?” He finished working through the calculation on his notepad before he answered in the affirmative. He’d only gotten one wrong and was sure it had been a trick question. “Where are the troublemakers?”

“The Terrible Twosome is having a tea party.” James ran his fingers though his curls, pushing them to one side the same way that Steve fussed with his own hair. “I’m supposed to let Pop know if I smell anything burning.”

James sighed heavily and pushed his notebook and text away from him. His brow creased in the same serious manner Steve's did when he was scrutinizing a map at SHIELD or a comic panel giving him trouble at the drafting table in the bedroom. "Ma, they drive me up the wall." Peggy raised her brow in surprise. "I've got work ta do. I don't have time for silly things like tea parties and princesses. Pop may have time for it, but I don't." He crossed his arms and looked up at her like she was a pesky secretary and he didn't want to deal with her. When had he gotten so serious?

"Don't talk about your father and sister that way. You've been taught better."

"Ma, they're downright annoying." His eyes widened in surprise, knowing he'd crossed a line.

Peggy pursed her lips. "No dessert."

"Ma!"

"None. I didn't raise this rude individual. When you've finished your work you'll set the table." Didn't he just spend and entire Saturday playing the dragon for his sister to slay? Where was this coming from? Barnes hadn't reported any problems after he'd watched them Sunday and Monday while Peggy and Steve were stuck behind closed doors with NATO. James screwed his face up with anger and stared daggers at the desktop. "Hop to it, homework isn't going to do itself. Holler if you need help." He wouldn't. He never did. He'd sit and puzzle out a problem until every angle was exhausted. He'd inherited Steve and Peggy's determination and stubbornness in equal measures. Peggy lingered near her own desk until he picked his pencil back up and began to write out a problem with renewed enthusiasm.

The sound of her daughter's laughter, light and clear, drifted down the back staircase from the nursery. "Where is my Tiger Lilly?" The worn copy of  _Peter and Wendy_  that had belonged to Peggy when she was small was the child's favorite. The little girl squealed with delight as Peggy watched from the doorway while Steve brandished a small fork and declared that someone would have to walk the plank if his tea went cold.

"I'm not Tiga Lilly, Mama. I'm Tin'a Bell." The little girl wiggled her slender shoulders and made the wings she was wearing bounce. "Papa is Keh'pin Hook."

Steve turned around in the tiny chair he was seated in and grinned over his shoulder at Peggy. He looked positively ridiculous--a man his size hunched over in a child-sized dining chair, a fork (presumably his hook) in one hand and a teacup carefully held in the other, his knees practically around his ears. To top it all off, a curly black mustache was painted over his lip, more likely than not with Peggy's eyeliner.

Lillian made a surprised sound when the blue chorus girl's helmet that Steve had worn into battle, storming bases by himself in Austria, slid down over her eyes and obscured her face. Steve pushed t back up. "Arr, the Wendy bird has come home!" Peggy struggled not to laugh, her lips drawn inward to a thin line.

The wings, Steve had made. Not much more than a couple of wire hangers and an old pair of stockings that he painted swirling designs on. He was home more often than not. He still donned the mantle of Captain America when he was called for, when SHIELD requested his expertise or presence on a mission or at some important political talk or state event. But he preferred the quiet of their brownstone in Brooklyn, penciling and inking for Timely under the name _Roger Grant_ , doing commissions for newspapers and advertising on the side. He worked during the day while James was at school and Lillian sat filling sketchbooks with abstract creations in the middle of their bed.

Lillian crossed her arms and stuck out her bottom lip. "Tin'a Bell and Wendy don't get along." She covered her mouth prettily and giggled as if she had gotten away with something very naughty.

Many of the people in their circles questioned their arrangement. Peggy—who was still very much and very legally Margaret Carter,  _not_  Rogers—out at work for a government agency while her war-hero husband was at home with the children. "Fuck 'em," Steve said once after Peggy had heard ladies at James' school whispering. "They don't know a damned thing." She'd fucked him instead.

"Well, pirates and fairies need to eat dinner just like Wendy does, don't they?" Lillian considered it for a moment and nodded. "Alright then. Clean up and come downstairs, yes?" Steve stood and saluted her with his "hook."

"Yes, ma'am." He moved to slip his arm around her waist and plant a sloppy kiss on her cheek.

Peggy laughed and pushed him away, "Not until you've washed that awful mustache off. You look like Stark's evil twin." He picked up a lock of hair off of her shoulder and scrutinized it. She waved him off and said she would explain later.

When she made her way back down the stairs and into the kitchen, James was forcefully setting down a napkin at each place at the dining room table. He slinked back into the kitchen to retrieve silverware from the drawer, his head hanging low. "I'm sorry, Mama."

"Apology noted. But that doesn't mean that you're getting dessert." She slid the roasting pan out of the oven and placed it carefully on the counter. James closed the drawer just a little too firmly and left to finish setting the table.

Dinner was tense. Lillian flounced into the dining room, her pigtails a mess from being under the old M1 helmet, her wire and silk wings bobbing behind her shoulders. Steve followed close behind, his face pink from scrubbing. James was already sitting sullenly in his place. Steve looked to Peggy for explanation; she closed her eyes and shook her head minutely. James relaxed the tension in his shoulders by an infinitesimal amount when Steve scolded Lillian for standing on her seat.

In the end, he didn’t give a second glance when the small, blonde pixie curled beside Steve while he read the evening paper to nibble on a sugar cookie. By the time she was finished there were more crumbs down the front of her pinafore than had actually made it into her mouth. The clock struck seven thirty far swifter than Peggy thought it should.

“C’mon, mo leanbh, bath and bed.” Lillian whined for ten more minutes. Steve hoisted her up over his shoulder and took her up the stairs.

James’ eyes tracked their movement; his fingers paused between pages of his book. “So how many ridiculous things did you do with your Uncle?” Peggy put her arms across the back of the couch, drawing him in without forcing him physically closer.

“Nothing. Uncle James taught me how to clean a rifle. Aunt Becca took Lilly to the park.”

“Would you like to tell me what’s bothering you?”

“I wanted to go to the game.” Peggy prodded but he wouldn’t say anything more. To avoid the conversation, he began to read aloud. “Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo’s father, built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her…” She indulged him, sipping her tea and absent mindedly playing with his curls until after nine.

“To bed with you, my love. You’ve got school in the morning.” He closed his book and placed it down on the coffee table.

“’M sorry, Mama.” He burrowed into her arms, more little boy than brand new teenager. “’M just…I…” She drew him in tight. “I just wanted ta go. I wanted ta go with Pop. But you were away and I couldn’t and I—“ She hushed him and planted a kiss on his forehead that he promptly scrubbed away with his fingers. “An’ I got home from school an’e was already playin’ with her and I had ta do math an—“

“Hush. Tomorrow is a new day. You can talk to your father then.” She sent him to bed with the unspoken resolution that she’d be taking a week off from work and damn anyone who told her she couldn’t. Peggy sat for several moments; the radio she had forgotten was playing tinkling softly in the background, her hands wrapped around her empty teacup. Being Deputy Director Carter and Captain America start getting in the way of being Peggy and Steve? Of being Mama and Papa?

She found Steve curled up in their bed half asleep, Lilly cradled in his arms looking impossibly small compared to him, a storybook opened across his thigh and careful French braids woven into her still damp hair. He opened his eyes groggily when Peggy sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. “You’ve got to stop letting her fall asleep in here.”

“But we were reading a story.”

“She has her own bed. In her own room.”

“But I don’t fit next to her.” He shifted carefully to avoid waking Lillian while he scooted to the edge of the mattress. “And you know I can’t say no.”

Peggy shook her head and planted a kiss on her daughter’s cheek. “When did I become mother to three children instead of two?” He grinned and blushed. “Go, put her where she belongs.” Peggy was brushing out her hair for the night when he returned. She set her brush down and watched as he pulled his sweater over his head. “Your son is upset with you.”

“I noticed. What’s wrong?”

“Something about a ball game.”

Steve frowned, studying the floor as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Shit.” He covered his eyes with a broad hand. “The Yankee game. We were supposed to go.” He sat down heavily in the sturdy wooden chair at the drafting table. “NATO, we had to—“

“Darling, stop.” He looked up at her with anguish on his face. She slipped between him and the drafting table, leaning against the incline. “It’s not your fault.”

“But we have to go back in two days. The French pulling out and now there all those rumors about the Soviets, I—“

“Steve, you’re not going back. I will go. I will go and I will drag Stark and whomever else I think may be helpful with me. He builds weapons. They will listen to him.” She pushed his hair back away from his forehead. “We both know they wanted you there as a scare tactic. They didn’t care what you had to say.”

“Gee, could that be why they kept talking over me? Couldn’t imagine.” He bumped his forehead against her stomach as he leaned into her. She murmured that clearly, some people never learn. “I just wanted to walk out. I’m tired of being a used. I’m tired of…I’m tired of disappointing my kids to help someone else. I’m tired of disappointing you. I gave them everything. We all did. I can’t give them any more.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close, rubbing his face against the soft cashmere of her sweater. She leaned over him protectively, her hair a curtain to guard against the outside world and her hands on his broad shoulders. “You never disappoint us, Steve.”

“Yes I do. All the time.”

“Why, because you forgot about a baseball game once? Because you were required to continue to serve your country and your government like you signed up to do?” He untucked the hem of the sweater at her back, his hands big and rough with callous against her back. She ran her hands down over his shoulder blades, pressing her thumbs into tense spots.

“I know what a hard time everyone gives you. For me being home, only taking certain jobs for SHIELD, not taking promotions, retiring from the service—“

“Hush, you foolish man.” Peggy straightened up and he looked at her through his eyelashes, blue eyes clear and watery in the lamplight. He was forty-one and still young and vital and baby-faced. Still the man that stepped out of the machine during Rebirth and lifted girls and motorcycles in the air and fought his way through the War head-on. The tiny crows-feet at the corners of his eyes were the only give-away. No grey to speak of. No softening physique.

Sometimes it terrified her to think of growing old alone.

“You made those choices because it was the best thing to do for our family. To take care of James. How would he have gotten through all of those surgeries, the pain? All of the asthma attacks? You needed to be with him, you understood what he felt. And we had to be realistic. Two parents in the field were far too dangerous. I know that you’d go back full-force in a heartbeat if the need arose. And I know that you’d do it to make sure we were safe. Fuck them. Isn’t that what you said?”

Steve smiled that lopsided smile of his that meant he wasn’t really happy and nuzzled back up to her stomach again. “If fuf oo.” His hands slid up her back, fingers playing behind the band of her brassiere. He leaned back in the chair and looked up at her. “I should talk to him.”

She shook her head, “Leave it for the night. Drive him to school in the morning. Have a chat.” She pushed his hair back again. “I’ll call in and take the morning to stay with Tiger Lilly.”

“Ah, but she’s Tinker Bell, don’t you remember?”

“Mmm. Yes. And that means I’ve been captured by the dastardly Captain Hook, doesn’t it?”

He grinned, “Arr, indeed it does, lassie.” Peggy couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous pirate’s accent. Steve stood, pushing back the chair with his foot to make room as he crowded her against the drafting table. “I do believe that makes me entitled to some pillaging.” He captured her lips in his.

“Pillage away, dear Captain.” She felt the smile curl his lips against hers before he moved across her jaw and down the side of her neck.

Peggy had a very special place in her heart for Steve’s drafting table. If anyone cared to look at the bottom edge, they would discover shallow, crescent shaped gouges in the wood. It was in the bedroom for the express reason that the window there drank in the best light during the day. Steve very much preferred to work in natural light.

Steve’s hands moved down over her flanks and the round of her behind before gripping the backs of her thighs. She took the hint and leaned her weight against the table, allowing him to lift her legs. She set her feet against the sturdy chair.

Steve was precious when he was at work. Carefully arranged hair always found its way across his eyes. Errant smudges of ink or pencil on his fingers and cheeks. The pink tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.

When he was alone, he often wound up sitting at the table in nothing but his shorts while he worked.

The first time they’d gone at it on the table was just such a time. Peggy’s parents had come to New York for the winter holidays and had insisted on taking James around on their own. They’d shooed her away at the doors of Radio City and whisked James off to see the _Christmas Spectacular._ Peggy’s younger brother, Harrison, had come to the States after the War. He’d made a name for himself in Virginia and was courting some girl called Amanda who came from old money. Their parents would be traveling down south after the New Year and it couldn’t come fast enough. Peggy’d arrived home to find Steve with a pot of coffee and a freshly started advertisement commission for company.

The commission had been ruined. In hindsight, it would have been a better idea to consider clearing the table first. Or at the very least making it to the bed.

She leaned back; her weight balanced between the table and the knee between her legs, and allowed her skirt to be rucked up around her waist. She ground her hips downward, moaning softly at the delicious pressure the action produced and the feel of Steve’s hands in her hair. He moved his knee back and forth, pressing up as she pressed down. “Shh,” he hissed quietly into her ear. His lips closed around her earlobe, teeth nibbling gently. “You know what a light sleeper Lilly is.”

“You’re exceptionally cruel tonight, Hook.”

“Isn’t that what’s expected of a fearsome pirate?” He chuckled, the sound deep and low in his chest. She could feel the rumble of it against her, making her feel warm from head to toe. His hand came to rest against her sternum to lean her back fully against the table. Her shoulders against the wood, she couldn’t help but to arch up into his touch.

Steve’s hand drifted down over her torso and brushed against the inside of her thighs, skimming and tickling and kneading. She whispered his name into the palm on her cheek, kissing the round of the flexor muscle. She turned her face fully into the cup of his hand when his fingers danced over the edge of her panties, stroking at the crease of her inner thigh.

Peggy made a disappointed sound at the loss of the firm pressure of Steve’s knee. She turned her face to glare at him in her peripheral vision when he took his hands away as well. With lips pressed together in silent laughter, he slipped his hands against her hips under the folded fabric of her skirt and eased the cotton shorts down slowly, leaving them hitched about her thighs. She snorted a laugh when she let her head drop back and it clunked awkwardly against the top edge of the table. He pressed his lips to her newly exposed throat, mouthing at the sensitive skin as he dipped his fingers between her folds, gliding up slowly, brushing over that bundle of nerves that made her toes curl and her fingers grip the bottom edge.

At least those little crescent-shaped gouges were for a very good reason.

Steve really did have talented hands. He often joked in private that he aimed to turn everything into a masterpiece and Peggy’s pleasure was no exception.

His fingers slipped and tickled and rubbed and petted. Inner and outer. Slick, wet sounds, muted beneath her skirt, made their way to her ears. She groaned openly when he worked his middle finger inside of her, gently pulling in and out, curling up as if to say _come hither._ Her legs tensed when he added the pointer, his thumb rubbing teasingly at her clitoris.

“Harder,” she mumbled, drawing in a sharp breath when he complied, his fingers pressing into the pliant flesh. “Faster.” She tensed her legs, trying to keep herself aloft.

Steve’s arm slipped behind her, circling her waist and holding their bodies close. Her muscles clenched and fluttered. She pressed her face to his shoulder, a choked sob muffled against his skin. She stayed there, trembling while she felt a drop of moisture rolling down into the crease between buttock and thigh to soak into the back of her skirt.

He held her, murmuring sweet nothings into her hair while she panted, the roar of her heartbeat in her ears quieting. She lowered her legs when she thought she might stand without wobbling and leaned back against the table. Steve kissed her sweetly, his nose sliding against hers before his lips pecked the end.

“I’ll make pancakes in the morning.”

Peggy smiled, the absurdity of his mundane comment not lost on her in the moment. “Blueberry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the Bufo test is a pregnancy test that was used the the 1950s and a little bit before that. The doctor would take either a serum sample or a urine sample from the woman and injected into a female frog. If the frog spawned/laid eggs within 24 hours of injection, it meant the test was positive and the patient had a bun in the oven.
> 
> Abortion in the US was pretty hard to come by in the first half of the 20th century. If you've ever seen _Revolutionary Road_ , then you know what it was sort of like. A lot of women were turned away by physicians if they couldn't pay a large sum of money. They resorted to a self-induced procedure or went to an illegal "clinic" after which many either died of blood-loss or massive abdominal infections. The ones who survived were often faced with being sterile and having serious chronic pain among other issues.
> 
> Tiny James is not so terribly tiny anymore at 13 and Lillian is 4 and a complete daddy's girl.
> 
>  _Peter and Wendy_ by JM Barrie (better known as _Peter Pan_ ) was published in the US & UK in 1911, though the character of Peter appeared much earlier in Barrie's other work.
> 
> Timley is the publication company based out of the West Side of Manhattan that would ultimately become Marvel. I have Steve working for or attempting to work for them in most of my stories. Although the comics division used the name "Marvel" on a lot of it's magazines as far back as 1944, they didn't officially adopt the name until 1961.
> 
> According to _Irish Central_ "a leanbh" is an affectionate term meaning "my child." I've featured Sarah calling Steve this in other fics and I think Steve would keep it up with his children. As always when use something non-English, if you speak the language and can give a correction if I'm wrong, please do!  
>  EDIT: Thanks to an Irish reader, I've had a correction and I'm fixing my pronouns up across my work. The term should be "mo leanbh." Thanks again, ForeverEffervescent!
> 
> James is reading the beginning of _The Hobbit_ after dinner to avoid talking about what's so upsetting that he spoke out of turn about Steve and Lilly.
> 
> This story takes place in 1959, so unfortunately, Steve couldn't have taken James to a Dodgers game. The franchise had moved out to LA by then. So, much to Steve's chagrin, James is a Yankees fan.
> 
> NATO was formed in 1949. In '59 France withdrew its fleet and the US had to vacate all of the air bases it had running there. In '62 there was the Cuban Missile Crisis. I imagine that in the aftermath of WWII and the forming of all the various organizations and alliances thereafter, SHIELD would have either a heavy hand or at least representation in each of them. I also think that the government wouldn't hesitate to attempt to use Steve or his presence as a mouthpiece/scare tactic to make negotiations go their way. They seem to forget that Steve was never a brainless fighting machine and rarely followed orders without questioning or modifying them in some way, one of the reasons he was such a perfect candidate for Rebirth.
> 
> Steve's drafting table looks something like this (picture) so it's an inclined surface that Peggy's leaning on. Just in case there was confusion.  
> 
> 
> Finally, the Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes has been running annually since Dec 1933. Harrison and Amanda Carter are Sharon Carter's parents according to her retconned storyline that makes her Peggy's niece.


	8. Challenge Seven: Half Naked/Half Clothed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit less of a specific "voice," but again from Peggy's POV if that makes sense in the slightest. There's a few quick POV changes at the end with some familiar characters that are new to this series. 
> 
> Here you'll find post-serum-but-still-a-munchkin Steve. Not a "serum malfunction" fic, more of an alternate theory.

Most people thought that Erskine's serum would create the most physically perfect human specimen possible. In some ways, that thought was true. The metabolism ran four times faster than the average man. The muscles were built up, more fibers and connections meant more strength. The bones hardened. Cardiac and respiratory function tuned to the most optimal level. Eyesight, hearing, smell, touch sensitivity—everything worked far better than the average person. It was everything Abraham was hoping for.

But when Rogers practically fell out of the Rebirth machine, eyes unfocused and chest heaving, the room was silent. He'd gone in petite and impossibly thin and barely together for all of his health issues. Agent Carter still wasn't entirely sure how he'd made it through weeks of basic training alive. She hadn't quite understood what the hell Erskine was thinking when Rogers first set foot on the field. But watching him during her meticulous daily evaluations certainly revealed all. It wasn't that Erskine believed he'd make a good solider—he believed Rogers was a good man. Peggy believed it too.

It didn't hurt that she constantly found herself fighting back smiles and laughter when she was around him. He was intelligent and quick. He had an answer for everything. He was sarcastic and droll and while he certainly had the utmost respect for his superiors, he didn't hesitate to land well-timed quips within reason. As many answers as he had, he had questions. He had a thirst for learning and a magnificent ability to adapt.

So when the serum had been injected and the Vita Rays were exhausted and the doors to the Rebirth machine opened, the lack of smiling and laughter was almost unnerving.

Rogers was still recognizably Rogers. "The fuck is this, Abraham? You promised me superior soldiers!" Some political so-and-so was raving like a loon in the viewing booth, shouting down at the scientists and medical staff on the floor with the subject. Erskine and Stark ignored him and tended to Rogers.

"Ya okay kid?" He stumbled forward and Howard stayed him with a gentle hand against his stomach. He was sucking in air like he'd been drowning, his eyelashes fluttered and his face flushed with color to make his cheeks match his lips.

"Yeah...yeah...there's just..." He straightened up, swaying slightly. He caught himself and looked up at Peggy, a smile curling one side of his mouth up.

"How do you feel?"

"When did...who put all this air in'ere?" His back was nice and straight. His feet were more sure. He was lean and lithe and muscled. His eyes were clear and they focused on the white tee shirt that the nurse handed him. His uniform pants fit more properly, less like a potato sack on twigs. He pushed his hair to the side, smoothing it back into place after he'd tucked the shirt into his waistband. He looked to Erskine, his features painted with a mask of concern and doubt. "Did it work? Did I do something wrong?"

Abraham clapped him on the shoulder, a gesture that would have made Rogers' knees buckle slightly before. "It worked perfectly."

***

The costume they'd thrown him in looked positively ridiculous. It was far more suited to a trapeze performer than a member of the United States Army. There were wings on the sides of his head.  _Wings_. It was a travesty. This was not what Abraham had selected him for. This was not what the serum was meant for—lifting motorcycles and pretty dancing girls. Rogers was meant to fight for the greater good, not play the role of cash cow for the government.

Peggy didn't know whether to be sad or angry or utterly annoyed. They'd all worked so hard. All of it was wasted because some twit who wanted to make sure he was reelected didn't see the same potential that they all did. Because they'd rather use him as a propaganda gimmick than force Phillips to put him in the field and actually see what the American people’s tax dollars had paid for. It was a point of contention between them. Phillips had grown to be less like a superior officer and more like family. The more familiar they got, the more he and Peggy butted heads—especially on the subject of Rogers.

It was an interesting show, to say the very least. Peggy caught a performance to satisfy her curiosity when she saw the poster go up in the pub. She was more than slightly mortified. But he  _seemed_  happy enough. When he spoke to the press in the hallway, smiling for photos with children, he  _seemed_  happy. It was a farce and Peggy could see right through it.

"The amount of War Bonds sold in every state I've been to has increased by ten percent! I'm very happy to be able to serve my country in any way I can."

"How'd ya get so strong, Captain?"

Rogers shrugged and put on a bashful look, "Gee, I don't know! I guess all it takes to be Captain America is to eat your greens and drink plenty of milk!" He bent down slightly and settled his arm around the shoulder of the young boy who had run up to him while the newspaper photographer snapped what seemed like the hundredth photo. When they finally left, he slumped against the wall and pushed the blue, winged cowl off of his head. His skull bumped against the wall when he let his head fall back. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

Peggy was about to turn the corner, to step out of the shelter of the larger-than-life-sized poster depicting him, when one of the chorus girls game jogging down the hall. "Steve!" He looked up, a smile on his face that didn't quite look as forced at Peggy was sure it was. "They wanna wash your costume before we hit the road, you have to get your keester to the dressing room."

He nodded and put his hand up in a sloppy salute, "Thanks, Annie, I'll be right there."

***

The next time she saw him was in Italy. The only person more despondent than the men, beaten and tired and wondering why the hell they were even there anymore, was Rogers.

"Is that really how you see yourself? A performing monkey or a lab rat?"

He barked out a laugh and snapped the small notebook shut. "Nah. More like a freak. Maybe Coney Island's got room for me." He looked up at her with a smile that read backwards. "I'd rather be a Strong Man than a laughing stock."

"I can't quite blame them for getting rowdy, Rogers." Where had that bright wit gone? "They've been through quite a lot. These men more than most."

An ambulance came hurtling across the muddy road. Medics flew into action as the rain pounded down on everything. Steve's eyebrows knitted together in frustration. "I should be out there with them. On the front. That's what I signed up for. I don't have any right to be giving anything less than they are."

"You were meant for that and more, Steve." He raised a brow at her and continued to watch the medics.

"What did you mean  _more than most_?"

"Those men you performed for, they were some of the few survivors from the hundred-and-seventh. All the rest have been killed or captured."

"Did you say the hundred-and-seventh?" She nodded. He sprang to his feet and sprinted toward the command tent.

Before Peggy knew it, she found herself arranging a clandestine flight with Stark. Roger's friend was one of the many that HYDRA had captured. They were being held in a facility in the Austrian Alps, miles behind the enemy line, as good as dead. It was an active zone; they'd be flying right into the line of fire in the dead of night.

Rogers acted as if someone had wound his key as tightly as possible. He was raring to go, determined to rescue his friend—or die trying, though that was left unsaid.

Stark was all too happy to help, knowing he was untouchable whether the unofficial mission failed miserably or was a wild success.

Agent Carter felt more alive than she had since that day in Brooklyn in the "basement" of the antique shop.

It was agony waiting for the transponder to receive a signal. As the hours passed it seemed less and less likely that Rogers would call for extraction, less and less likely that he would ever return alive. If he was captured, if Schmidt knew what he had, God only knew what would happen to Rogers. Peggy had faith in him, she had faith in his belief that he would come through, but dammit it was hard to keep on.

Phillips was getting geared to go up one side of her and down the other. She could see it in the way he set his shoulders and puffed out his chest. The commotion from the edge of the camp disrupted his momentum. Peggy thought her heart would beat right out of her chest when she laid eyes on him.

He was alive.

He was alive with barely a scratch on him.

He'd brought back hundreds of Allied captives. And a tank. And weapons. Supplies.

Peggy straightened her back and squared her shoulders and raised an eyebrow at him. "You're late."

His mouth twitched up on one side. His eyes were shaded by the too-large brim of the brightly painted M1 helmet, his jacket torn to tatters; his cheeks were streaked with soot. He held up his transponder, damaged beyond repair. "I couldn't call my ride."

***

Peggy wasn't angry with Steve when she found him kissing that grasping little blonde. She wasn't jealous. She wasn't even annoyed.

Peggy was disappointed.

All of that talk about _finding the right partner_ seemed to have flown out the window once he became a hero, once Captain America became a symbol of red-blooded American bravery rather than the USO show pony. But what disappointed her more was that he assumed she was engaging in callous, casual affairs with the Army's most important weapons supplier in the middle of a war. What disappointed her was the implication that she had led him on and what could have been an innocent entanglement turned into retaliation on the spot.

Being in the thick of things seemed to ground him again. Suddenly, he was the same Rogers she met at Camp Leigh. Well, not suddenly. But he did change his tune quite heartily. Peggy took pride in each coded mission report, got a thrill every time she removed a piece from the map that looked more like a game board, felt a warmth in her belly with each rare, short personal note that reached her from the front.

Six months of such correspondence turned them into fast friends and faster allies. Agent Carter fed the Howling Commandos choice bits of intel, unofficially, of course. She was sure Phillips knew, positive of it. If he did, he didn't care. As long as the Howlers and their more official movements weren't compromised, Agent Carter was free to feed. Aid for the French Resistance. Protecting some important castle or church or statue or painting—helping preserve the heritage and culture of the people with the Monuments Men. Moving groups of children, secreted away from the SS by those in their communities that had the position and the bravery to resist, getting them to border crossings and safety. Sabotaging aircraft and tanks. Looting ammunition, especially anything with HYDRA's touch. The Howlers and their Captain were more than happy to be of use.

> _Carter,_
> 
> _The last one was interesting. Who would have thought Dum Dum was so good with kids?_
> 
> _Felt like Peter Pan. Maybe I'll head to Neverland instead of Coney Island. Always thought I'd die young, maybe I can live forever. Think the Howlers will be my Lost Boys?_
> 
> _When can I rescue more canvas dames? That marble gal was heavy. Say the word._
> 
> _Straight on 'til morning._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _SGR_
> 
> _PS. This Canadian you sent us is a little...wild._

Hers. It was a befuddling concept. Peggy had grown quite fond of Steve but she wasn't exactly sure she could, or should, be thinking of him as hers.

Did Steve think of Peggy as his? She wasn't sure she liked that. The idea of a person belonging to someone else. It felt like property.

She sat in the dark in a folding chair beside Phillips, watching the latest newsreel from the front. The Howling Commandos were gathered around the hood of a jeep, pouring over a map. By now they would have been long gone, moved on to the next mission. Logan would be assisting them in quietly—at least as quietly as was possible for a man like Logan—liberating one of the smaller camps. A test run, to see how exactly the command structure worked, how heavily guarded they should expect the others to be. In the end, this whole thing wasn't about power, or money, or land. It was about life.

Peggy was caught up in her own thoughts when Phillips cleared his throat, effectively getting her attention. The cameraman had zoomed in on the center of the group where Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes were pointing out spots on the map. Barnes glanced up at the camera and put his arm down on the map, blocking view of their coordinates. Rogers continued speaking for a moment, his attention on the men. The camera focused on the compass in Rogers' hand and the photograph of Peggy tucked into the cover. It looked like it was clipped from a newspaper. She wasn't sure where on God's green Earth he'd gotten it. The short profile on her from the  _Sunday Post_  was ages old and the only one she knew of that had included a picture. And, well...that explained  _"Yours, SGR."_

Peggy pressed her lips into a line to keep from laughing as Rogers snapped the compass shut and scowled at the camera.

***

"I'm going with you."

"No you're not, Carter."

"You can't stop me."

"I can order you to stay."

"And I will disobey orders and follow you anyway. Come to think of it, I'll ask Stark if he'd like to go for a ride over the front. A leisurely lark. I'll parachute down, I think I still know how to work a chute--I'm not too terribly out of practice--and hook up with the Howlers myself." She folded her arms and leaned back against the desk. She knew she cut an imposing figure against the backdrop of the map with all of its bright red X's to match her lips and nails. She raised a brow and pursed her lips. Phillips narrowed his eyes and scowled so deeply, Peggy thought his face might just get stuck that way. "You know I've been through just as much training as anyone else here and that I'm one of the best shots you've got. You can use me.” She hardened her expression. "Let me be useful."

"Fine. But you're keeping close. I'm not going to have you putting anyone's life on the line for your little infatuation. You or Rogers."

Peggy let her lips curl into a smile as she stood up straight and walked past him out of the office. She patted him amiably on the shoulder, "Colonel, I can assure you, it's not an infatuation."

It had been more than a year. Their short notes, sporadically, whenever they could actually send and receive them, had taken on a much more intimate nature. Steve's were filled with vivid descriptions of the sky at night. Flowers or trees he'd never seen before. How biting the cold was in the field. How hard or muddy the ground was. They were filled with words that painted pictures in her mind of the Howler's around the campfire at night and made her hear the full-bodied tone of Dugan's laugh or the light tone of Barnes' chuckle and made her smell the burning sticks and leaves or the roasting rabbit over the flames. The notes were often accompanied by a dried flower, a blade of grass or a leaf that was the only green thing Rogers could find in bombed out village (she would never have the heart to tell him that they were brown and flaking when they reached her). The button off of a HYDRA agent's uniform. A bit of ribbon from a sweet shop's box somewhere in France. Small sketches and doodles. A broken buckle from someone's boot with a plea for better shoes.

It had been more than a year and it had been filled with countless notes and tokens and Peggy had grown to think of Rogers less as Rogers and more as Steve and more as someone who would be waiting for her when the world was a little less upside down and less as only a friend and ally and more as  _hers._

And as soon as the regiment moved out, she would be going with them and she would be fighting alongside him. On the front where she ought to be. Because she had no right to give anything less than anyone else.

***

He was a magnificent thing to watch. He fought with a style that said he was a much larger man. He hurled his body through the air and at opponents. He used the shield like it was a discus and a boomerang and switched seamlessly from using it to using his sidearm. He used his size and his speed to throw the enemy off balance, to turn their own mass and force into a weapon against them.

"He's always fought like that. Kind'a." Peggy sat with Barnes, a glass of warm vodka in her hands, the bottle between them. The Howlers were taking a few hours to recuperate. Barnes had returned to their makeshift camp with the soot-covered bottle reclaimed from an air raid damaged farmhouse that seemed to serve as inn and tavern for the area. They'd laid claim to the miraculously undamaged and very abandoned barn behind it. It smelled of hay and mold and wet soot, but it was shelter. "Dirty as hell when 'is lungs would let 'im. Tried ta teach 'im some, how'da keep his hands up, how'da stay low. None of it stuck. Just throws 'imself in full-force and waits for me to come save 'is sorry ass." Peggy stifled a laugh when Steve made an offended sound beside her. "Now 'e's just got the power behind the punch."

"Jerk."

"Punk."

The facility they had taken out was just a few miles down the road. They'd entered quietly enough; the only guard seemed to be in the watchtower in the yard. Barnes made his way to the top while they hid in the  shadow of the thing. They waited for the signal that he was in place, that his sight was set and he was comfortable in his nest. He whistled a few soft notes, something characteristic of some bird or another in the area, and they moved cautiously forward.

A crack rang out in the still air. The HYDRA body armor thudded together noisily as it hit the ground just before the doors. They paused, waiting for an onslaught that didn't come. Steve turned around and saluted jauntily toward the guard tower before he slipped forward in the shadows to enter the facility. Steve's main concern was first and foremost, the safety of his team. He would move forward and clear each space before he allowed anyone else to move.

He was like...water. A serpent. A ghost. His small frame and light step allowed him to meld his body into narrow shadows and tight spaces. It was almost inhuman, especially compared to someone like Dum Dum, or Logan for that matter, who'd been called back to his own regiment a few weeks prior.

Moving was graceful. Fighting was pure force.

The facility was supposed to be a supplies warehouse. It turned out to be a weapons operation--loaded with ammunition powered by that odd blue energy from the cube Schmidt stole from the north.

Peggy heard the faintest click. Her eyes flicked up to the walkway above and the dark figure of the HYDRA agent silhouetted against the grimy windows. "Ten o'clock!" She barked out. Steve barely had time to move the shield in front of his face when the agent squeezed off a round. It clanged loudly against the vibranium shell and  _tinked_  against the cement floor. A single square windowpane shattered, the shards of glass flying inward. The agent fell forward off of the walkway and hit the ground with a sickening crunch. Bright sunlight streamed in through the broken pane. The enemy was on them in what seemed like fractions of a second. They shifted and crouched, taking shelter behind machinery and crates, finding stable points to defend themselves from.

It was then that Peggy realized how little a sense of self-preservation that Steve truly had.

"He's always lived like 'e was gonna die in the mornin'. Never thought 'e'd 'ave time ta waste. Threw 'imself into ev'rthin'--fights, school, work, readin', art. All of it. Got beat the hell up in ev'ry way ya could imagine. Always been like what didn't kill 'im made 'im stronger." Barnes grinned roguishly, "Or, ya know, I jus' stepped in sooner."

Steve was out in the open, an unguarded target. He protected his back with the shield as he ran up the center aisle. And agent stepped into his path, firearm drawn. Steve's hands snapped out, seizing hold of the weapon and jerking the agent down. He used the downward momentum of the agent to push himself up. Everything was moving like time was trudging through molasses. Steve's boot came down on the man's head. His hand flew to the edge of the shield. He foot hit the wall and it was like he was running up the surface. His arm swung out and the shield went spinning. It clanged loudly as it hit another man on the walkway, bounced off the opposite railing, and went hurtling back toward Steve. His fist made contact with a third's jaw, the man crumpled gracelessly as Steve plucked the shield from the air.

No movement was ever wasted.

Everything drove toward some final goal.

He slammed his arm through the straps on the inside of the shield and crouched low, folding his body down and hiding his entire frame behind it while shells rained down. Windows shattered. Men fell. Everything became a blur.

They secured the facility and radioed back to base camp. There were no other HYDRA units in the area. They could afford to find other shelter for the night, just in case there was some kind of booby-trap. Stark would arrive in the morning to comb through the weapons and take whatever looked important for study or destruction. They would fly back to London with him. The world would be left to believe that the Howlers had never left the SSR headquarters there. Logan and a select few from his regiment would be stirring up skirmishes just across the border to divert Axis and HYDRA attention.

The Allies couldn't afford the blow that knowing there were HYDRA strongholds finding footing on Soviet soil would deal.

It would be one of the last missions Peggy was given permission to work on directly in the field with the Howlers. The Colonel would insist that he needed her with him, her eyes and ears and instinct. She had a suspicion that he just wanted to keep her safe. It was both endearing and infuriating.

With Peggy's glass drained and the bottle empty from passing around, they found dry spots to hunker down and try to get some sleep before the morning came and Stark's plane arrived. It went without comment that Barnes and Rogers slept near to each other and with even less comment that Rogers and Carter would be side-by-side.

Steve slept on his back. Straight and flat. Ready to spring up if the need rose. Peggy combed her fingers through his hair, stiff with the salt of his sweat. His lips rose on one side, his face pulling into a smile as she scratched gently at his scalp. He popped one eye open to look at her. They kissed quietly. Steve skooched his body closer, their fingers twined together as they slept.

Peggy woke when Steve groaned and sat up. "Fuckin'  _Christ_ , Bucky, you don't have to kick me, I'm awake!" Barnes snorted in amusement and headed off through the open barn door.

***

The next time she would see him in person was when they recalled him to London after Barnes' death.

He was stony and silent.

It was frightening.

Everything in her wanted to hug him close and not let go. He blamed himself. She blamed Schmidt.

Peggy found him in the rickety remains of the pub that the Howling Commandos had been formed in. It seemed like a lifetime ago when the space was warm and reeking of drink and booming with laughter and piano music. It had fallen victim to the air raids.

He looked like a lost child sitting at a round table that had been spared, his hand wrapped tightly around the neck of a bottle. His face was red and wet. His eyes swollen and tired. He smiled, the expression heartbreaking. "Can't get drunk."

Peggy sat with him for a few hours. Let him hash and rehash the whole ordeal, picking apart every last detail of the last few moments of Barnes' life.

"Allow him the dignity of his choice." Telling him that it wasn't his fault, that he couldn’t have changed anything, wouldn’t help. Steve had to come to terms with it himself.

And as much as she would have liked to sit in the ghost of the pub with this ghost of a man and his misery, the war was still raging on and she had work to do.

It was well past two in the morning when he appeared in the doorway of the map room. "Peggy?" His voice was raspy, hardly more than a whisper. She set aside the tin full of pins and paper flags and turned toward him. Steve came forward with tentative movements, every step a question. He raised his arms as if asking for permission before wrapping them around her and burying his face in the crook of her neck.

He sobbed, dry and wrecked, for a few moments before pulling away. He smoothed the front of his tee shirt, his ID tags clinking softly, his jacket and shirt and tie abandoned somewhere. He straightened his shoulders and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it to the left as always. "I'm sorry."

Peggy reached out to grasp his tags, keeping him close with them like a lead. "Don't be." Most of the others were long gone, retired to apartments and hotel rooms or the barracks there at headquarters where Steve should have been.

“I was serious. When I said I wasn’t going to stop. I need you to know that.” It was unnerving the way he looked at her. Eye-to-eye. Full of intensity in spite of the exhaustion painted over his features. He leaned forward, bumping his forehead gently against hers. His hands—fingers long, palms and pads calloused, skin warm—came up to either side of her face. His eyes fell closed, long lashes tickling her as they came to rest against his own cheeks. His lips met hers, a whisper of contact. “I need to know…” He kissed her again, parting her lips with his.

“Know what?”

His tongue slid along her teeth, probing tentatively inward. He pulled back to take a breath. “I need to know you’ll be there. You’ll have my six.”

She nodded, her nose brushing against his. She gripped the front of his tee shirt in her fingers with the tags. “Of course.”

“I need to know you’ll stay safe, follow orders.”

“I always do.” She could feel his smirk against her cheek as he mouthed toward her ear.

“I won’t let them take anyone else I love.”

Peggy’s heart jumped into her throat. He’d never used that particular word before. Neither of them had. They’d toed the line of _together_ very carefully, chosen words even more cautiously. No matter what either of them thought about down the line, every day they were serving could be their last. It was easier to just _be_ than to give it a name. It would hurt less when it ended, no matter how it wound up.

Steve pulled her against himself, stealing her breath and gripping her flesh. Peggy marveled at the way their bodies fit together, the way they interlocked and settled into the other’s lines and curves in a way she’d never experienced before. Her softness against the steel cables of his arms and legs, the hard plane of his torso. Not for the first time, she found herself glad that the serum had not worked in the unbelievable ways that some of the people involved in Rebirth had hoped. They wouldn’t fit together quite so gloriously if Steve had become a brick wall of a man.

He backed her against the table, lips sucking marks onto her throat that she prayed she’d be able to cover with her shirt collar. She pulled him down with her, one hand still gripping the front of him, the other steadying herself as they toppled a coffee mug filled with pencils. Figures holding place for Axis and HYDRA targets went skittering across the tabletop map as Steve swept his hands behind her and grasped her hips to lift her.

He grunted in frustration at the buttons on her blouse, unwilling it seemed to back away and allow her to take care of it herself. He snarled into her collarbone when the first button popped off and _clicked_ softly against the opposite wall. “Wait, Steve.” He froze. Peggy realized she was gripping the front of his tee shirt so tightly that her hand had begun to shake. She needed him to slow down.

Peggy loosened her grip and covered his hands with hers. She moved them down to her sides and set to work on the buttons. He looked like he was on the verge of breaking down again when he surged forward to kiss her. A flurry of motion found Steve’s shirt and her blouse on the floor. Steve groaned openly, the sound muffled against her bosom when she raked her nails down over his back. If she was going to be marked then so was he—even if they wouldn’t last very long. He invaded her space, breathing her breath and rocking against her, a knee up on the edge of the table and forcing her back, as she ran her fingers over the bright red welts blooming on his skin.

His face dropped down onto her shoulder, “Peggy?”

“Yes. _Yes._ ”

Her skirt was pushed up and her drawers yanked down, deposited unceremoniously on the floor. Steve tore into his belt buckle and fly with trembling hands, his adrenaline-induced arousal more than evident. She arched her back into his forward movement, sucking in breath with the rough shove of his hips against her.

Peggy had no illusions.

They weren’t making love. It wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t something to write poetry about.

They were fucking on a table in a map room in an underground facility. They were fucking because they were devastated and terrified and somehow they had managed to come together in the middle of everything.

But it wasn’t about love.

It was just about feeling something other than exhaustion and anger.

And that was fine.

They dissolved into the motion of thrusting and pushing. Biting and grasping. Grunting and snarling and gasping.

Peggy’s body felt like someone had lit her on fire. She clung to him as she reached her peak, the crescendo of it washing over her as abruptly as they’d begun. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him close, pulling him deep, settling into the boneless feeling of afterglow though quite aware of his continuing momentum.

He huffed in her ear, his breath humid. The muscles in his arms were tight as a bowstring, his fingers gripping the edge of the tabletop hard as he finished.

He was soft and pliant, energy spent, emotion dulled rather than a bright, raw edge. They pulled apart carefully, helping to right the other’s clothing and cleaning up the mess of pencils and Axis markers. Peggy smoothed his hair to the left before he had the chance to, disrupting his self-comforting tick. He was clammy and sticky with sweat, dead on his feet. “Come back to my flat. Sleep in a real bed.” He nodded and left to find the other pieces of his uniform.

***

Peggy pulled him in before he jumped onto the landing gear of Schmidt’s craft. “Go get ‘im.” The fire in his eyes was terrifying and thrilling and she knew, _she knew_ , that Schmidt wasn’t going to slip through their fingers this time.

“Steve! Steve?”

“Peggy! I have to put her down.”

“We’ll call Stark. We’ll find you some place to land. Just give me your coordinates. Howard will come get you. Steve, _please._ ”

“I think I’m gonna need a rain check on that dance.”

Peggy wondered if this was what it felt like when Steve looked into Barnes’ eyes and watched him fall. What it felt like to listen to him scream. To watch him fade into the distance, a dark streak across the snowy landscape.

It felt like her heart was being forcibly ripped from her chest.

“Alright, the Stork Club. A week next Saturday.”

“I still don’t know how to dance, Peg. I wouldn’t want to step on your feet.”

“You won’t. I’ll teach you. Just find someplace to land. Anywhere. We’ll find you.”

“How about Neverland?”

“Steve, please—“

“Peggy, this is my choice.”

“Steve! Steve?”

***

He was aware of the impact against the water. He was dizzy but he was conscious. The glass didn’t shatter completely. It gave him enough time to grab the shield and plod through the water as it rapidly numbed his legs. He climbed the stairs and went through a door. He didn’t know what space he was in and didn’t care. It was dry.

His ears popped as the plane sank further into the water. The temperature dropped. His skin prickled with the cold like he was being stuck all over with thousands of needles. It seemed to take hours. It was impossible to focus on anything other than the cold and how violently his body was shivering. He wondered if his teeth would crack from all the chattering. Not that it would matter. It reminded him distantly of the ice baths he had to endure once as a child with a particularly high fever. It had just made him more sick in the end.

It was the hunger that struck him first.

Ever since the serum, he was constantly hungry, constantly needing to refuel his body as he burned through energy.

So it was a relief when he was too cold to feel the burn of the bile of his empty stomach in the back of his throat or the stab of the hunger in his gut.

The hunger and the cold, and what he suspected was the lack of breathable air, made him tired.

In the end, he slept.

***

There was a warm breeze against his skin. He was vaguely aware of someone talking. Even without opening his eyes, he could tell that there was light.

It had been dark. He had never experienced such darkness as when the power in the plane went down and the lights went out and he was left with nothing but the dwindling air supply and the cold and the hunger.

That was the first thing that struck him. The hunger. Like he could eat an entire horse and still not be full.

Steve opened his eyes and sat up. Something was wrong.

Maybe it was a dream and he would open that door to find Peggy and Bucky on the other side because HYDRA had failed to take the people he loved. Maybe the serum hadn’t worked the way it was supposed to at all. He’d gotten sick and passed out and just hallucinated the entire war.

But when the door opened and the soft-spoken woman walked in, she was a poor imitation of a dream.

Her hair was too long; there was too much pomade or something in it, the curls too slick looking and stiff. Not to mention that it contradicted every regulation he knew of. Her lipstick wasn’t painted on correctly. Her eyebrows were too plucked. Her uniform shirt was wrinkled and tucked sloppily into her skirt, which was not quite the right shade of brown. Her tie wasn’t _her_ tie. That wasn’t a gentleman’s necktie, longer and wider than what a lady wore. No dedicated servicewoman would be wearing silk stockings while the war was on—and he _knew_ those were silk, they shined in a very particular way that nylons differed from. He wasn’t even going to comment on the fact that he could see the outline of her brassiere. Either it didn’t fit or it was some new style he wasn’t aware of. And Steve was aware of a lot of styles. Showgirls were rarely overly modest when they were comfortable around you.

But the game. The game was what was truly disturbing. Because the game that was playing on that radio—was it even actually playing on the radio? The sound wasn’t _quite_ right—was not going on right at that moment. Steve had been at that game. Phillies at Dodgers, the twenty-fifth of May 1941. Dodgers beat the Phillies eight-to-four. The game had lasted about two hours. It had been pretty close until the sixth inning when the Dodgers had pulled ahead and scored five runs. He and Bucky had scrounged up enough extra cash to take Connie and Rebecca along. Bucky’s little sister was always begging to tag along to get out of the house. Connie had a thing for Whit Wyatt.

But Steve, he knew his baseball. He loved the game. He knew every statistic for as far back as he had been following the Dodgers, which was practically as long as he’d been breathing. He loved that it was both patterned and random and each player had to be completely in tune with those around him and ready to catch or run or steal or slide. There was elegance to it, in some ways.

And _Goddammit_ , he had been at that game.

***

“Asset is heading south toward Times Square. How should we proceed?” He was running like a bat out of hell and gaining ground.

“Follow only, Widow. Do not fire. We’re on our way.”

The Asset stopped as the SHIELD vehicles surrounded him. He looked confused.

“That can’t be Captain America. Every comic I’ve ever seen makes him out to be a six-foot-something beefcake with a chiseled jaw and fabulous hair. He’s just a kid.”

“That’s who they’re saying it is. Pulled him out of some wreckage near Greenland. Aircraft he was in turned out to be HYDRA. Matched the description of the Red Skull’s plane.”

“I’m not believing it until there’s some sort of confirmation.”

“Let’s go, Hawk. Doesn’t look like anyone’s taken a particular interest.” She huffed out a laugh. “One of the perks of New York City, I guess.”

He looked in either direction before they stepped out into the street. “Crazy shit.”

***

He knew he was in New York. Manhattan, actually. That had definitely been Times Square. But everything was…too bright. Too garish. There had been plenty of lights and billboards the last time he was home, but this was just overwhelming.

An attractive, if intimidating looking, woman slipped into the seat across from him. It looked like a conference room, but he felt like he was being interrogated. It didn’t help that he was sure he was being watched. The corners of her mouth turned up into the faintest hint of a smile that never reached her eyes. “I’m Agent May. I have to apologize for the stunt with the fake recovery room back there. We weren’t sure how you’d react to waking up sixty-six years into the future.”

“So you thought lying and putting on an act would be better?”

***

The petite man sitting at the conference table wrapped his hands around the paper cup of coffee. He looked at Melinda critically before he lifted the cup and sniffed it dramatically before taking a sip. “You dressed me up and put me in an oversized dollhouse. Can’t be too careful.” He was a sarcastic little shit.

Melinda looked faintly amused. “So is it just coffee or is there something else in that cup?”

“Just really bad coffee. Although, I’ve never had anything but really bad coffee. I’m not much of a judge.”

“I hope black is okay. You didn’t seem like the milk and sugar type.” He pulled a face and set the cup down.

“Why isn’t Coulson in there? Didn’t he watch the guy while they were defrosting him?”

Fury nodded. “Thought Phil would be a little too overwhelming.” He looked just about as faintly amused as Melinda had been for a moment. “And May is much more his type. He’ll respond to her.”

“Are we sure that’s actually Captain America?”

“He had the shield, was wearing the suit. Fingerprint records come back a match to Captain Rogers’ original enlistment records. DNA will confirm it. There’s still a tube of blood down in cryo from the old SSR labs.” He folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. “Emailed Carter a photo. She gave visual confirmation.”

“Isn’t she a little…” Barton didn’t finish his statement.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s not that bad yet. Just the more recent stuff that gets hazy for her. Rest of it’s still there. She was positive. Wanted to get on a plane and come here.”

Agent May was talking but it was clear Rogers wasn’t listening. “Is she still alive?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play stupid. Agent Margaret Carter, Strategic Scientific Reserve.”

“Former Director Carter is happily retired in Manchester.”

He nodded. His brow knitted together, visibly turning that new piece of information over in his head, but some of the tension left his shoulders.

“My guess is that when he lands on his feet he’ll wind up back in Brooklyn. Familiar stomping grounds. Sort of.” Fury swiveled his seat around to face Romanov and Barton while they watched the surveillance feed. “You’re already in Bed-Stuy. I want you to baby-sit, Barton. Just until he’s stable. We’ll decide where to go from there. I want to know everything. And I don’t want him getting on a plane to England. Not yet, at least.”

“I thought I was watching Selvig.”

“You can do both. He doesn’t work twenty-four-seven. Just make it a point to cross paths on the train. Plant a few bugs. The usual.”

“Yes sir.”

***

Sixty-six years would put Peggy pretty far up there. Agent May kept talking but Steve’s mind wandered.

Wendy seemed to have gone on living while Peter Pan was away.

He was glad for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I thought, (aside from the intentional social and political commentary) why did the serum have to turn Steve into a beefcake? Why couldn't it have optimized what he already had? Wouldn't it have been more physically efficient to build on and improve his existing physical structure than to make him grow a foot and put on a hundred pounds? He can still be the super soldier and be essentially himself. When imagining how a smaller post-serum Steve would look, how his body would work, I actually thought a lot about Natasha. She packs a hell of a punch into a petite frame, her body and mind are one of the best examples I can think of as a highly efficient, completely optimized, tuned weapon if you take out the extreme growth factor.
> 
> Peggy getting the Howlers to help out the French Resistance is a nod to her comic storyline in which she was a part of it herself. The "wild" Canadian, who Peggy then refers to by name is Wolverine. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Steve did encounter both Wolverine and Magneto during the War at some point in the comics. I've mentioned the Monuments Men operations previously, so I won't rehash that.
> 
> The _Sunday Post_ was a British newspaper that ran from 1914-1950.
> 
> And yes, the giant nerd that I am, I looked up the stats for the game that is most likely playing on the radio that Steve had been to in the final scene of CAFTA. Whit Wyatt was the pitcher on the starting lineup for that particular game. If you'd like a source, I'll be happy to provide one.
> 
> The US Army has been keeping fingerprint records of servicemen since 1905.
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and for the feedback!


	9. Challenge Nine: Against the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's always exciting when Agent Carter goes undercover, even more so when Steve gets to watch her work. On a reconnaissance mission at a party, things get hairy and blood gets boiling.

Undercover operations on the home front were out of the question for Steve.

He was too recognizable at this point. His face had been splashed across every newspaper and magazine he could think of. They’d even invited him to play himself in a little bit of a cameo appearance in a picture. Admittedly, it had been ridiculously exciting. Exponentially more so than the propaganda reels he’d filmed at the beginning of his service. How many people got the opportunity to swing a swell dame like Ms. Garland around on a dance floor? Also admittedly, it had done very little by ways of trying to stay out of the spotlight. Bucky had teased him for weeks about the number of times he’d either stepped on Judy’s feet or nearly stepped on them while the Howlers looked on from their table on the set, all decked out in their dress uniforms with their faces scrubbed and freshly shaved and their decorations polished so highly they were all sure it would show up even if the screen was dusty.

Peggy had teased him about how star-struck he’d been, jokingly inviting him to leave her in favor of the actress.

Being easily recognizable had its upside, though.

Politicians were constantly falling over themselves to invite Captain America and the Howling Commandos—whichever ones happened to be state-side, as long as they could call themselves a Howler—to their miscellaneous parties and rallies and events. That trend often made Peggy’s job easier.

Invitations led to guest lists. Assets and targets and threats could be found and assessed. Invitations could be duplicated. Believable plus-one’s could be acquired.

Even when Steve declined an invitation, it was always fun to watch Peggy get ready to go to work. Fresh manicure. A new or new-to-her dress. A wig. A game of _where will this weapon get strapped_?

He had a favorite: When she elected to use the pistol he’d given her upon their engagement—alright, maybe it wasn’t an official engagement, neither of them wanted to rush into anything they weren’t absolutely sure of; it was more of a promise that _I’ll consider this possibility very seriously_. Regardless! The mother of pearl inlay on the grip panel laid in stark contrast with its iridescent greens and pinks against her thigh in the impossibly delicate looking thigh holster. The possibility of her being caught with it with each swish of her gown—either the slit opening or the fabric hitching on the weapon—gave the whole thing a charge of danger.

“That woman could kill a man with ‘er pinky an’ it gets ya _hot_ , punk. No use denyin’ it.”

He hadn’t been able to stick around to see her get ready on that particular evening and it was driving him crazy. The house matron who ran the ladies’ apartments that Peggy lived in had caught him at the front door when they’d returned from their lunch date.

It had been sandwiches and egg creams sitting at the counter at their favorite diner in Brooklyn where a waitress who Steve knew from high school was always doting on them and telling them what a lovely couple they made and how lucky Peggy must feel to have landed such a catch; all the while never realizing that she was gushing over a man who’d been the boy she turned her nose up at and called a nibcocked flopperoo on more than one occasion and that he was actually the luckiest person in the world, not Peg. It gave him a special sort of vindictive pleasure when she batted her eyelashes at him and flipped her hair back. He knew it was awful and he shouldn’t have that attitude but even Bucky thought it was hilarious and Peggy wasn’t quite as firm in her disapproval of his delight than she really could have been.

Peggy had been holding back a laugh and calling him an unrepentant fool when the house matron came outside. She frowned and stared very pointedly at Peggy’s hand on his arm. The matron always managed to make him feel like he was an absolute cad and douse the bubbly _young and alive and in love_ feeling that he got after a swell date with his best girl.

“It is rather cold out today _Miss_ Carter. I expect you should get inside before you catch your death.” Peggy’s gloved hand stayed firmly on Steve’s forearm where it rested on the railing. “You may invite your _gentleman friend_ inside and he may call on you _in the sitting room_ but you may not loiter on the stairs all afternoon.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The matron turned on her heel and went back inside. She knew exactly who Steve was and very loudly and firmly did not approve of him coming anywhere near the building. She was convinced he was putting on polite airs and really had scandalous intentions with Peggy and the rest of the ladies she presided over. He’d nearly laughed himself right off the side of the building once while he was climbing the gutter to Peggy’s window. Scandalous intentions indeed—and all of _Miss Carter’s_ devising! Not that he was innocent in the matter—he was the one climbing a gutter in the middle of the night but they really had only shared one doozy of a kiss at his request before Peggy had passed her gear bag out the window and they shimmied back to the ground together.

Peggy widened her eyes and pressed her red-painted lips into a line to hold her laughter in until the door closed firmly. Steve hazarded a glance up to the foyer window to see the matron peering out at them through the gauzy curtains. “We’re being watched.”

“I had a feeling. Next time you pop ‘round I’ll have to sneak you in through the laundry room in back. She can’t watch us if we’re upstairs behind closed doors.” Peggy sighed and laced her fingers though his. “I’ve really got to get going, though. I haven’t asked Katherine if I can borrow her good dress yet… and _really_ Captain Rogers, trying to get a nice girl who makes an honest living managing the morning shift at the phone company to kiss you in public is quite rude!” She pursed her lips and spun the wheel on the roller-skate hanging over her shoulder. Peggy used them at her make-believe job to move quickly through the switchboard stations. They were just worn enough to be believable, though he was sure the only time he’d ever seen them on her feet was when she first bought the skates and the pair of them went for a spin in Central Park. They’d both wound up flat on their behinds more than once and probably more than once for the express purpose of pulling the other down with them.

“Mind if I really give’r somethin’ to make her head spin?”

“By all means.” Steve ducked his head and gave Peggy a quick peck on the cheek. She smiled broadly and he watched her as she headed up the rest of the stairs. “Have a good evening, Steve.” She spoke just loudly enough for the matron to hear. Steve raised a hand to wave goodbye and waited for her to close the door behind her before he turned and walked in the direction of the subway station.

The senator from New York was hosting a Christmas party. Everyone who was anyone was going to be there. Starlets and musicians and writers and politicians and curious foreign guests that SHIELD or the SSR had an interest in.

Steve and “his” Howlers had been invited. They arrived together in the car that had been sent around for them. Another plus to lack of anonymity. Others would be there, though not making quite as much a public spectacle of themselves. “Captain, relax.” Falsworth’s cool accent slipped over him like water. “The last thing Le Mademoiselle needs is you fretting over her.”

“I’m not fretting.” He smoothed his hair to the side for what was probably the thirty-fifth time that night. “I just don’t know what her cover is tonight.”

“You ere like a wor’ed mama, Capitaine.” Sometimes Steve preferred when Dernier’s quips were directed at everyone else.

“I just… I had to leave before she got ready. That fuddy-duddy matron caught us on the front stoop and I still had to pick up my suit from the cleaner. I don’t know what her cover is. That makes me nervous.”

“Rog’ehrs the last ta’hm yeh knew ‘er cover story, yeh damned near blew it.” Dugan adjusted his bowtie and started toward the door of the building. The party was to be held in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Astor. The opulence of events like this never failed to make Steve uncomfortable.

Jones laughed that rumbly, full-bellied laugh of his when they caught sight of themselves in the spotless mirrors of the lobby. “We look like a pack ‘a penguins.”

Bucky turned his nose up and handed his coat off to the attendant, whipping his scarf off his neck as he went. He narrowed his eyes at his reflection and passed his hand back over the sides of his head, smoothing his pomaded hair down as he went. “Well then, I’m the damned emperor.” His gaze fell on Steve in the mirror and his lips spread tight into a grin. He turned, thumping Steve solidly in the stomach with his left hand, wooden fingers clacking softly against the buttons on Steve’s shirt. “C’mon. We’ve got a mission.”

There was a cocktail hour that seemed to last an eternity. The group of them worked through the room, trying their best to insinuate themselves into conversations that sounded like they were relevant to the job at hand or were happening between people who could make the right introductions. Dum Dum worked the room, laughing often at his _Commando Cocktail_ of bourbon and triple sec. Bucky graciously answered probing questions about when he lost his arm and how it affected his service. Flasworth charmed the pants off of everyone with his refined sense of humor and good taste in literature, easily falling in with the egghead crowd and luring them into his confidence. Dernier and Jones stayed near the bar; while Morita picked his way carefully around the room, identifying exits and checking out the wait staff, planting discreet listening devices in quiet corners.

Steve couldn’t focus on anything. He assumed that dinner was lovely. There was fragrant roast duck and rice stuffing, squash shining with butter, brussel sprouts and celery and carrots and olives. He ate whatever was placed in front of him. Then he polished off several of the rolls in the basket on the table. “Sla’down, Steve. We got all night. Ya might wanna actually taste what yer eatin’. Stuff’s pretty good.” He turned and looked at Bucky, watching him carefully slice through a tender piece of duck with his knife balanced in his left hand. At times like this, Steve was never sure whether the instinct to inhale whatever he was offered was more an unbroken old habit or the manifestation of his excitement and nerves in the face of a completely unclear mission. The whole thing ended with orange sherbet that made his head feel like someone was plunging an ice pick in through his eye socket. He was relieved when dinner service was finally over.

“Senator, thank you so much for inviting us tonight.” Steve’s hand was shook with enthusiasm as was each of the Howlers’ in turn.

“No, no, thank you, Captain, gentlemen. It’s an honor to have you here. I hope you all enjoyed dinner. The band should be starting up soon—plenty of young ladies here I’m sure would love a spin around the floor by any of you.” The Senator winked and grinned. He had a granddaughter that he’d been talking up to Steve every chance he got. “Ah! This is the Ambassador from England and his niece…”

The woman beside the Englishman smiled brightly. “Victoria.” Her yellow-blonde hair fell in a wave around her shoulders. Her tortoise shell glasses and very bare makeup made her look young. The drawn-on beauty mark at the corner of her mouth drew attention to her red-painted lips.

Hot damn. That was Peggy’s color. Steve would know.

“And you must be Captain America.” She beamed and named them each in turn. Steve took inventory of her costume. The red and black striped wrap was just sheer enough to show off the curve of her shoulders. He wondered if she turned around he would be able to make out the two circular scars on the back of her right shoulder? The fabric matched the knee-length dress she was wearing. The whole thing sparkled and stood out against all the dark-colored suits and uniforms she was standing amongst. “I want a dance from each of you. My card is totally free.” She batted her eyelashes and blushed prettily.

“I’m a bit of a dead hoofer, but Bucky ‘ere is a pistol out on the floor, Miss.”

“Oh, _please_ , do call me Victoria! And I’m sure you’re not that terrible.” She put her hand on Steve’s bicep brazenly. The Senator frowned so deeply Steve thought his face would break. “And if you are then I shall have to teach you.”

“Well, I wouldn’t wanna step on y’eh feet.”

 _Victoria_ smiled prettily and waved her hand dismissively. “Just as soon as you’re done with all the boring mucky-mucks, you come find me. I haven’t had a good Lindy in far too long. There is simply just no fun allowed away at finishing school.” She waggled her fingers at the group and excused herself. She disappeared into the throng of younger people hovering near the edge of the dance floor.

Bucky looked fit to burst. He pressed his lips together and coughed and snorted, pretending to choke on his drink while Jones gave him a good thump on the back to cover his amusement. With the Senator’s displeasure, the Ambassador’s confusion, and the blush Steve was positive was creeping up his neck there was certainly plenty to be amused about.

The Senator turned up his nose. “Well, the finishing certainly doesn’t seem to have stuck.”

Morita’s eyes widened in horror at the Senator’s remark. The Ambassador seemed torn between his previous confusion and outrage that his _niece_ had been insulted. “Well, my Victoria has always been a free spirit.” Brows raised all around, the nervous tension in the air thick and tangible.

Steve cleared his throat. “So, your granddaughter…” He trailed off, not wanting to get himself in the middle of that particular mess but feeling the need to deflect attention from Peggy.

***

Peggy found herself in Barnes’ arms soon enough. He guided her around their little section of the floor, the smooth swivel of his hips moving her this way and that, the stiff wooden arm held up to support their frame. She was surprised at the music the band had chosen to play. She imagined there had been a request; this certainly wasn’t one of the old standards that got played to death at every one of these ridiculous affairs.

“Are you trying to show off?”

“Maybe a little.” He snapped his arm out and pulled her back in again. She made a mental note to ask Steve if Barnes had ever danced competitively.

“I suggest you move your hand higher, I am an Ambassador’s niece, after all.” Bucky grinned wolfishly, his eyes sparkling with boyish mischief. He jerked his chin in Steve’s direction over her shoulder making Peggy wonder what was going on behind her.

He hummed vaguely to the melody of the Latin tune the band was playing, “…and spin.” He whipped her body around in a tight turn. She had to stifle a giggle when she saw Steve doing his best to entertain the Senator’s granddaughter. The girl was a hopeless klutz and Steve was far too patient. His nostrils flared when her heel came down hard on his toes. He ignored the obvious discomfort and kept her upright when she teetered off balance and let out a nervous, high-pitched sound.

“Pretty sure ‘e’d rath’eh be in a trench right now.”

“I think he’s just impressed to have found a worse dancer than himself—oh!” Bucky pulled her close and whipped the two of them around together in a neat spin. His legs easily slid around hers, guiding her feet in what she imagined was a near perfect rumba.

“See ‘im?” He cleared his throat. “Two o’clock.”

Sure enough, there was Vasily Karpov, his decorations glittering in the light and a young man hovering at his elbow at attention near the bar. Karpov took a sip of his vodka and swept his eyes over the room. “I do.”

“You gonna take ‘im?”

“I’m not sure that would be appropriate for Victoria. Perhaps a decorated serviceman like you might approach him. Unless my memory’s gone fuzzy, wasn’t Karpov interested in you before?” Bucky pursed his lips in displeasure and nodded.

There were rumors that the Soviet military leader would be in attendance, which was exactly why Peggy was here. Rumors further that he would be shopping around for his own personal allies and had the power to pay for them if he needed to. None of their band of brothers had any love lost for the man, least of all Bucky. He’d once described the feeling of being around Karpov as needing to take several hot showers and scour his insides. Karpov had no great respect for anyone aside from himself and took every movement to the extreme.

“Will do.” The dance ended. People clapped. “Go save the punk before ties ‘imself up in a pretzel tryin’a keep his feet safe.”

“I think I shall let him suffer just a bit more. He did get me in trouble with my landlady today.”

“You get him ta climb the gutt’ah again?”

“No, I believe the crime was standing out on the front stoop for too long.”

Bucky chuckled and made a show of thanking her for the dance. He politely declined requests from several ladies as he made his way toward the bar.

***

Jones directed Steve toward a table that seemed to have been reserved for the few Russian dignitaries and business people who had come to the party. Bucky was seated, listening to the gentleman who was speaking with a serious look on his face.

“You could do great t’ings in Russia, Ser’gent Barnes. One hand vashes ze other, yes? Your train’ink helps us, ve ‘elp you.”

Steve pulled out a chair beside Bucky and apologized for intruding. “Nah, not intrudin’ on anythin’. General Karpov was just tellin’ me all about the advances in high tech prosthesis Russia’s been makin’. Thinks I sh’go back with ‘im.”

“It vould be as if you ‘ad never lost it. Completely intee’grated.”

Bucky let the elbow of his wood-and-metal arm thunk down on the tabletop. “I think I’m doin’ okay the way I am.” He smiled, the expression hard. “I’m a little attached ta this thing.”

“You sound as if you are not happy my men found you. It could have been HYDRA. Then vere vould you be? Mm?”

“I’m more happy that our boys managed to meet up with ‘em.”

“Ah, yes. Zah ones vith the ridiculous names.”

Juniper, Happy, and Pinkerton had been scouting the valley below the train tracks; unaware of the fight on the train above them or that there was a man down. It had been completely random that they’d come across the slick of frozen blood where Bucky had been lying when he fell. They’d followed the trail and picked up the muddy tracks the jeeps had kicked up. The Russian soldiers had insisted that they’d acted only in Bucky’s best interest, immediately moved to get their ally help when they recognized his uniform and the wing on his arm. Happy had pulled Steve aside and told him not to trust them, it had been pretty damned clear they’d dragged Bucky through the ice and rock and snow to their truck and hadn’t done much more than keep the flap on the back closed to ward off his hypothermia. It had really only been by the grace of God and the combination of the cold temperature to lower his heart rate and shoddy cauterizing they’d done when they got him back to their camp that Bucky had survived.

Steve couldn’t help but keep looking at the young man that shadowed Karpov’s every move. “Do I know you?” He shook his head. Steve smiled, trying to make himself appear as amiable as he possibly could. “I could swear to it. I never forget a face.” He rapped on the side of his head with his knuckles. “Steel trap. Even the things I don’t wanna remember.”

“My home vas destroyed dur’ink the var. The Skull ‘ad a terrible veapon there. Many people died.” Steve’s face scrunched down in displeasure as the young man described the battle and the strange, high-powered Tesseract-based weapon that Schmidt had hidden in the village of Kronas, how he’d forced the people who lived there to give he and his men quarter, how he’d used it as his base of operations in that area.

“What’s your name?”

“Aleksander.”

“I remember you.”

“It is a shame you did not fulfill your duties at Kronas. You deed not destroy the veapon before the Skull killed my family.” Aleksander’s expression went from neutral to full of rage and back again in the blink of an eye. It sent a shiver down Steve’s spine. Steve and Bucky were both relieved when Karpov was pulled away by some diplomat or another. Flasworth could take that one over.

A flash of metallic red caught Steve’s eye as Peggy slipped out of the ballroom. He excused himself and went in search of her. The entire evening was beginning to feel like a complete waste of time. No one was talking real shop. No one seemed suspicious. Nothing was going on that was more significant than the usual political hogwash that tended to happen at these things.

Steve was restless.

He found Peggy in the coatroom, the attendant conveniently absent. She was tucked behind one of the racks of rich furs and wools, searching pockets. Her hand flew to the hem of her dress, stopping just before she uncovered the holster strapped to her thigh. “Bloody Nora, you startled me!” She frowned at him and slipped the handle of her metal mesh handbag over her wrist. She opened a compact and pressed a key she’d pulled out of a gentleman’s coat pocket into the stiff putty that substituted for makeup in the little silver case. “You haven’t been followed, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.” He leaned against the end of the rack and crossed his arms, watching her work. She made impressions of another key and dropped one of Stark’s miniscule tracking devices into a tear in the pocket lining of another coat. “I think this party is a bust. We didn’t get anything out of the Russians. At least not much more’n a fixation on Buck, but that’s not new. Karpov’s got a thing for ‘is arm. His…assistant. Lukin. Angry kid, lived at Kronas. Asked a lot of questions about Buck’s training. Said he’d wondered if all American soldiers fought the way Bucky did.”

Bucky was deadly at hand-to-hand. He’d been selected for a special program while he was away at basic, moved quickly through it. Had a natural talent for the improvised weapons and blades and unique physical techniques they taught him. In the end he’d chosen to become a sniper. All the same, there was still an elegant brutality to him that never went away.

Peggy pursed her lips. “They’re staying here. We think they’re involved in some of Howard’s schematics going missing among other things. Very possible they have someone on the inside.”

“Vanko?”

“I don’t think so. Anything is possible, I suppose.” She shook the bottom of the coat she’d dropped the tracker into, adjusting its position down at the hem, hidden in the lining. “You didn’t happen to catch which room they’re in, did you?”

Steve grinned and held up the shiny room key he’d picked from Karpov’s pocket.

Peggy’s lips curled into a smile at the corners. “Where did Captain America learn to pick a pocket?”

“Nazi Germany. You know that, _Mademoiselle._ ”

She narrowed her eyes, her smile turning toothy. “Where did Steve Rogers learn to pick a pocket?”

He laughed, “Brooklyn. Hoboken,” he ticked each one off on a finger. “Lower East Side. Jersey City…”

Peggy shook her head, “They should have kept you out of the army on criminal record alone.”

Steve shrugged and folded his arms. “Kid’s gotta eat. And I’ve never been caught.”

“Don’t get to smug about that. It’ll catch up—“ Peggy’s face froze at the sound of the door clicking open and creaking quietly on its hinges. Her eyes darted around their immediate surroundings for a second before she grabbed Steve’s lapels and pulled him in. Her hands flew to work, mussing his hair and collar, rumpling the tails of his shirt. She thumped her body back against the wall and yanked him down, pressing her lips to his messily. Her urgency made his blood rush and his heart pound against his ribs. His leg tingled weirdly when the heel of her shoe pressed into the back of his knee uncomfortably, sending waves of electricity down into his toes.

Someone behind him gasped. Peggy made a sound somewhere between pleasure and outrage and pushed him away. He could feel the shock register on his face along with the sting of her open palm striking his cheek. “I am a _lady_.” She hazarded a quick glance over his shoulder. Quiet footsteps receded back through the room. “At least take me out for dinner, first.” She kissed him again, smacking their lips together noisily. The door to the coatroom opened and closed again quietly, a soft chuckle following the sound.

Peggy sucked in her bottom lip to hold in her own laugher. “Your face is priceless.”

“You slapped me.” He rubbed at his cheek, the sting gone but the heat of confusion and embarrassment still there.

She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “You deserved it. To think, Captain America is really just a rogue.” She pursed her lips and tried to look haughty. Her brow creased at the sound of quick Russian drawing near. They drew themselves into the shelter of the shadows of the coats in the dimly lit room. The chatter passed, growing softer as the speakers moved down the hall. “The gentlemen’s loo is in that direction.” Steve nodded, not that he thought she needed confirmation—he was sure she had the entire place cased thoroughly. “What room?”

He took the key back from her and indicated the tab it was hung on. “Three-four-two.”

“Distract them.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Suddenly Peggy was no longer there and Victoria stood in her place with a slightly disheveled dress and lipstick. She smoothed her pretty blonde hair back and dragged her thumb along the rim of her bottom lip. She winked at him in that way that was so very _Ambassador’s cheeky niece_ , took a breath, and slipped out of the coatroom toward the elevator bank. Steve let out a nervous huff of laughter before heading out in the opposite direction.

The Russians were still in the restroom, arguing quietly, when Steve walked in. He pretended not to notice them, turning toward the mirror to survey the damage. She’d certainly done a number. He set to righting his shirt and tie and jacket and then glanced toward the two. “Gentlemen!” He grinned widely and snagged a sheet of paper towel to wipe at the smear of red at the corner of his mouth. He’d waited a beat or two outside the door. His Russian wasn’t as good as his French and nowhere near as good as Peggy’s or Bucky’s, but it was passable. Karpov was fuming about Stark’s absence from the party, insistent that someone he called _the spider_ hadn’t done her job.

“Kapitan.”

“General, Mr. Lukin.” He turned back toward the mirror and raked his fingers through his hair, trying his best to imitate the suave, casual way that Bucky preened. “Sometimes being famous has its perks.” He raised a brow, feigning ignorance at the disdainful look on Karpov’s face, and continued to chatter about how the ladies loved Captain America and the Howling Commandos while he blocked the restroom door.

***

The room wasn’t that difficult to find. It was a large suite, tidily kept as if they hadn’t even settled in for the week they were scheduled to stay. She was stopped once by a bellhop who did not recognize her as a guest on that floor. “Oh!” She held up her key and bit her lip coquettishly, “I was invited.” After that it was as if she did not exist, the bellhop carrying on his way with the baggage under his arm.

For someone who should have been careful with where he left his stolen property lying around, Karpov certainly was the opposite. Peggy supposed the arrogance that came with simply _being_ Vasily Karpov contributed to that at least in part. It reminded her at least vaguely of the arrogance that came with simply _being_ Howard Stark.

The schematics were tucked neatly into a large leather portfolio, just as her informant had suggested they would be. She hefted it onto the bed and unlatched it to see what exactly it contained. “Oh, Howard.”

She wasn’t entirely sure what some of the plans were for, but some of them looked downright unsavory. She fished the palm-sized camera out of her bag and snapped pictures of each. She’d have them developed and bring Howard’s man, Jarvis, in to the office to have him identify the devices if they couldn’t track Howard down himself in the morning. She moved quickly, closed up the portfolio and put it back in its place. She began to move through the room, trying to find any further evidence of theft or conspiracy. She took mental notes of the types of guns and caliber of ammunition she found stored in the closet, the custom labels in the clothing, the signature on the note card attached to the expensive bottle of champagne on the desk. Peggy couldn’t help smiling to herself at the generous amount of time she was being afforded to work. Either Steve was excellent at stalling or something had drawn Karpov and his assistant back to the party.

She finished planting trackers into the more well-worn looking of the coats in the closet and was about to place a listening device into the phone when she heard voices drawing near in the quiet hall.

Peggy quickly screwed the receiver back together and placed it back into the cradle.

She was trapped.

The bathroom was too obvious. It was far too cold out to hide on the balcony. They would surely feel the burst of chilly air in the room and be suspicious. If they didn’t, then she’d catch her death out there whether she waited or managed to duck into another room. She turned around once, taking measure of her immediate options, and settled on ducking down on the far side of the bed and scooting underneath. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that the movement of the bedskirt and duvet wasn’t too noticeable as Karpov and Lukin came into the room.

She held her breath and willed her heart to stop pounding in her ears as she tried to listen to their rapid speech.

“Kapitan Amerika—bah! Eto nichego ne stoit sobaka . YA tak ustal ot… _everyone falling at his feet. Stupid hunk of flesh, that is all he is. That is all the Americans let him be!”_ Peggy cringed at the sound of the champagne bottle shattering against the wall. “I want him!” That caught her attention. As quietly as she could manage, she ripped the recording device she’d sewn into the front of her borrowed dress out of the loose stitches holding it in place. She fed the wire up from the inside of her bodice and laid the device down on the floor as close to the edge of the bedskirt as she dared. “We should have had him! We should have had both of them.” Something else hit the wall, a book perhaps. “Those idiots couldn’t keep hold of Barnes when they found him and couldn’t beat that idiot Stark when the _Valkyrie_ crashed! Dammit!” She willed herself to become a part of the floor, to sink into it, when Karpov sat down and the mattress dipped.

“And you! You imbecile! I cannot believe you lost my key!” Peggy raised a brow. Steve had picked Karpov’s own pocket, not Lukin’s. “You’ve made me look like a fool! Having to get the staff to let me in to my own room.” He spat in what Peggy assumed was Lukin’s general direction.

***

Mortia cast a skeptical glance around the room. “Where’s the lady?”

“Upstairs.” He cocked his head in question. “In the General’s room.”

Morita’s face blanched for a moment. “Those two left the ballroom about thirty minutes ago.”

Steve knocked back the rest of his whiskey sour, relishing the burn as it went down and wishing it would do something to take the edge off. “Uh-huh.”

***

It was sweet relief when Karpov insisted on stepping outside to smoke. “What? A few days here and you forget what real cold feels like?” There was the distinct scent of a match striking before the heady aroma of the cigarette. “Getting soft as well as stupid, Aleksander?”

“No, sir.”

Peggy waited several beats before shoving the recorder back down the front of her dress and wiggling out from under the bed. She steeled herself, ready to grab for the gun at her thigh if need be, and crawled across the floor toward the door. She craned her neck to make sure neither man was looking before she eased the door open.

“You! Stop!” Lukin was standing in the doorway of the balcony, pointing at her accusingly. She scrambled to her feet and slipped out the door, slamming it shut. She pushed the little decorative table from the corner in front of it, hoping to buy herself time to race down the hall.

What she would have given for a radio to call in help. She’d have to rely on the judgment of the other agents down in the ballroom.

At least the hall was quiet, most of the guests on this floor downstairs at the party. There would be no one to get in the way or become collateral damage.

The elevator was out of the question. Too slow.

She didn’t need to turn around to know it was Lukin’s footfalls pounding on the carpet behind her as she yanked open the door to the service stairwell. She took the stairs two at a time, cursing her shoes for slipping and sliding on the slick flooring. All of the wind went out of her when she reached the bottom to find the doors to the street outside locked. Footsteps continued to echo in the stairwell, quick and disciplined. She made as much noise as she could, trying to draw attention to the doors and outside and continued to the basement, hoping for a place to hide or another way out.

***

Jones shook his head, “This is taking too long, I don’t like it.”

Steve clenched his jaw and nodded. It was killing him, the sheer force of will that it took to keep himself in the ballroom. “She knows what she’s doing.” He feigned a smile when a warm hand clapped him on the shoulder from behind. “Dino Manelli, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” The actor-turned-Howler’s smile was dazzling. It’s friendliness turned Steve’s worry that he’d done something to endanger Peggy or her mission objectives while he was stalling Karpov and Lukin in the bathroom into a razor’s edge.

“So’re you, Rogers!” Dino steered him toward the bar. “I see you’re still hangin’ out with this pack of hooligans! How’re things with the little lady?”

Steve did his best to smile and laugh and follow the light conversation, battling with himself as to whether or not to use the distress code for missions like this. Secret and sensitive and probably a high risk to international security.

Certainly a high risk to Peggy’s personal safety.

Jones took the initiative to steer the conversation, now more than invaded by the many fannish hangers-on that Dino tended to attract in addition to those hoping to be near the Star Spangled Man, in the direction it needed to go. “Rogers can drink like a fish and never feel it. Union Jack over here is a lightweight if I ever saw one.” Falsworth laughed and agreed with the lie.

“I can drink all I want, but it doesn’t mean I enjoy it. It’s more frustrating than anything else. When you can drink just for the taste you start to realize how horrible everything actually tastes.” He frowned at the whiskey in his hands. Polite laughter all around. “I’ve gotten pretty boring back on the home front. I’m a big fan of a good cup of tea.”

“Hot, I hope.” Falsworth raised an eyebrow at him. Steve let his gaze fall on Manelli for a moment before answering.

“Scalding.”

There were a few moments of agonizingly amiable silence where people sipped drinks and quietly commented to one another. Dino glanced down at the expensive watch on his wrist. “Whoah! I’ve got to get back to my hotel soon or I’ll turn into a pumpkin! Or so my agent says.” He put his glass down on the bar before he clapped Steve on the shoulder. “We’ll get some old buddies together soon, how about it, Cap?”

Steve nodded, relief rolling over him in a wave. “That would be great.”

***

Peggy was ready for them. There was no other option than to be ready. The basement egress had been a bust as well. Even if she could have jimmied the lock itself, the chains around the handles wouldn’t have allowed enough slack to get her body through the opening. There was no way out but up and going up meant going through Lukin and the men that had seemingly appeared out of no where to assist him. She’d listened while they scoured the stairwell and tested the doors and made their way down to the basement.

She steadied her breathing and gripped the pipe she’d found in the maintenance area in her hands like Steve had shown her before the Dodgers game they’d gone to that summer.

Barnes had chucked balls at her while his sister squealed in delight declared that Peggy should try out for the All-American Girls League. Rebecca had sat next to her at the game and chattered almost more endlessly about statistics and game play than Steve had in the days leading up to it. Peggy had had such a good time that she almost didn’t care about the way her shoes had stuck to the pavement with the sugary residue of spilled soda and crackerjacks for days afterward.

“The English bitch has to be down here. There is no other way out! Find her and bring her back to General Karpov!”

Peggy watched the shadow of a man move closer to her position.

_Here’s the windup…and the pitch…_

The pipe landed solidly across the man’s shoulders and he hit the floor. There was shouting in rapid-fire Russian and the hustle-bustle of people moving toward the noise in the crowded basement. “Alright then. One down.”

Fighting a group of assailants, armed or not, was a matter of being able to think at least two steps ahead and to use one’s surroundings to their best advantage.

So first, the stack of crates went toppling. Two out of commission for the moment. Then the pipe crashed into another’s jaw. He made a sound like a dying animal and crouched against the wall, holding his face. Peggy gasped in surprise when her own weapon was used against her, the pipe a bar against her chest as she was dragged backward, shoes slipping wildly against the floor. She slammed her body into her captor, reeling for a few seconds at the impact of the back of her head against the nose behind her.

With the loss of her improvised weapon, her remaining choice was the gun on her thigh. She hadn’t wanted to resort to shooting. There were too many points for a bullet to ricochet off of, too many bits of plumbing and electrical work, too much chance to attract the attention of the hotel staff and draw them into danger with the noise of the shots.

But she’d run out of options. There were too many focused on her at once.

Where in Heaven’s name had these goons come from? She scanned the room quickly. Identical white shirts and black pants. Neat little bowties. Shoes shining even in the dim basement lights. Planted amongst the regular hotel staff. Most likely well in advance.

The nearest one cried out and dropped when her first shot hit his shoulder as he rushed toward her. Clamor nearer the stairs drew her attention. A sharp elbow knocked back the man she had head butted, a renewed gush of blood running over his chin, when she whipped her body around to take aim at the stairwell. “Crikey, Cohen!”

The man in his crisp suit took aim and fired over Peggy’s shoulder. “I was cuttin’ up the floor with my wife. First time in months we’ve been out without the kids. This better be worth it!”

 _“Izzy! What’sit looklike down there?”_ the radio slipped to his hip crackled. Peggy ducked as the remaining man swung at her, allowing his momentum to send him careening into a crate full of dishes embossed with the hotel’s crest.

“Looks like Carter handled ‘erself, as usual. She’s gonna need extraction. Get the car ready!”

“Isadore! Where did Lukin go?” There had been no one else in the basement, no one on the stairs. Chances were he’d run back to Karpov and they were preparing to get out of dodge or come back with more firepower. Peggy glanced back at the slumped figures of the injured men scattered through the basement, taking inventory once more before pressing forward to follow Cohen back up the stairs. “Oh!” Peggy stumbled backward, teetering on the stairs dangerously, her cheek on fire where she’d been struck from the shadows. Izzy shoved Lukin back, striking the General’s assistant with the butt of his gun. Lukin tumbled arse-over-head down the stairs while Peggy and Cohen raced upward.

They feigned composure when they reached the lobby. Mrs. Cohen was smiling and radiant, Peggy’s coat in her hands like she’d simply been waiting for her husband to join her. “Oh, thank you.” Peggy smiled through the pain in her face and allowed Izzy to help her into the coat.

“Dino’s waiting for you.” He jerked his head toward the front doors. The radio and handgun were swiftly hidden again beneath his suit jacket.

“Izzy, take your wife and get out of here, quickly. Take the scenic route home.”

He nodded, his wife not needing to be told twice as she walked purposefully toward the coatroom attendant’s window. A crisp ten-dollar bill had kept him away while Peggy had worked earlier. Now the young man looked alarmed and pale.

“Rogers and the others?”

“Can handle themselves. Have a waiter give them a message and get out.” Izzy nodded and gave her a friendly peck on the cheek. “Thank you for loaning your husband.”

“That’s what I get for marrying a Howler. He’ll have a new story for the boys. The others were getting dull after hearing them so many times. Now go!”

Peggy walked as calmly as she could through the lobby, every fiber in her screaming to break out into a run when she passed the doorman and saw Dino Manelli waiting for her. He was leant back against his glossy black Chevrolet, ankles and arms crossed, and a jaunty grin on his face. “Been waitin’ fer you, Victoria.”

She batted her eyelashes and clutched the expensive fur more tightly around her shoulders. “Oh, Dino!” His eyes narrowed at the lobby doors behind her and he swiftly moved to open the passenger door. He slid over the hood as she pulled the door closed, a string of foreign swears following him. Engine already running, he gunned it as Lukin reached for the passenger door handle. Peggy watched his figure receded in the mirror, his lips a split mess from the butt of Cohen’s gun.

“Ambassador’s already back at his digs. Got out as soon as we gave him the signal.”

“Thank you, Dino.”

“My pleasure, Peg. Life’s been boring without a good mission.” He smiled at her briefly and checked his mirrors again, probably checking for a tail. “Get what ya needed?”

“Fairly certain.” She thought about the things Karpov had said about Barnes and Steve. “More than I really wanted, actually.”

“Rogers is worried outta ‘is mind.”

Peggy laughed quietly to herself, not sure whether she was genuinely amused or it was simply nervous tension. “He gets more worried on covert operations here than he ever did when we were running into live fire or staring down a bloody tank.”

“He can’t throw himself in front of the tank on a covert op, Peg.”

“No, I suppose he can’t.”

The Ambassador was sitting up in his parlor, his foot tapping incessantly and a cup of tea cooled and soupy sitting in the saucer on table. Dino had pulled up to the gate and informed the speaker that connected to the house that he was brining Victoria home for the evening, she’d had enough of American Christmas parties. The man let out a huge breath when Peggy and Dino walked into the room. “Oh, Agent Carter. I do not think I have the countenance for these things any more.”

“You did beautifully, Ambassador.” She smiled and winced, remembering the pain in her cheek.

“Oh, my.” His hand, cool and smooth and dry, touched her lightly. She was sure it was probably purpled and well on the way to swelling. He called for his valet to fetch some ice and offered her a seat and a fresh cup of tea.

“No, thank you, sir. It’s really not necessary.” She shucked her coat and accepted the ice and a seat graciously. Peggy began to debrief the Ambassador, explaining what he would need to inform the people on his end of. The Russians weren’t to be trusted. Whatever was brewing in the east wasn’t going to end quietly. They may have put HYDRA largely to and end, but there was a new monster digging it’s talons in. “They absolutely have Stark’s schematics. I suspect they’ll begin production as soon as possible. I think that they’re trying to recruit someone from over here. We’ll be able to track their movements for a short while at the very least. There are definitely other agents in play.” The Ambassador’s eyes sparkled in the soft light of the parlor. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, yes, Agent Carter.”

“Sir.”

He smiled, the expression soft and sad. “You just look so like her.” His niece, he meant, of course. “And she so wanted to do just what you’re doing.” She’d been killed in the blitz just before she was scheduled to leave for Paris to run an information-gathering mission of her own posing as a newspaper correspondent, the rest of the high-society and political scene believing her uncle had packed her away to finishing school in the countryside for safety. It had been easy to step into her identity, the information that she was dead wasn’t widely known outside of London society. Peggy had had the opportunity to meet the girl a handful of times early on in her own service before she’d become attached to Colonel Phillips and Rebirth.

Peggy put the ice she’d been holding to her cheek down. She gingerly removed the tortoise shell frames from her nose and picked a few pins out of her hair to ease the blonde wig off. “I am so sorry.”

He shook his head and covered her hand with his own. “Quite alright. I imagine she would have enjoyed tonight thoroughly. Dancing with Howling Commandos, dodging villains, dusky espionage.” He sat back and took a sip of his cold tea, frowning into the cup. “You should stay the night, Agent Carter. It will be safer.”

“I can’t. Unfortunately, it is dangerously close to curfew and my landlady does not abide by her tenants keeping unladylike hours.” He chuckled, his expression softening once more. “No, I’m sure they’re watching this place. It will make being Peggy Carter in the morning and leaving here far more difficult if I stay. Dino will, to keep up the charade and ensure your general safety. But I’ll be going back home.” He offered to have his car take her, she insisted she could find her own way well enough and the car would only draw attention.

Manelli ducked back into the room. “Rogers is here.” That was not part of the plan.

His footsteps clicked down the highly polished hallway quickly. “P-Carter.”

Peggy turned in her seat and nodded. “Captain.” His eyes fell on her bruised cheek, swelling mercifully down. His jaw clenched and he straightened his posture.

“I’m escorting you home, Agent Carter. Won’t take no for an answer. Too dangerous out there at the moment for a lady on her own. Even one such as yourself.” Peggy always marveled at the way all of the Brooklyn ran out of him when he flipped the switch from _Steve Rogers_ to _Captain America_.

“Alright, then, Captain. I’ll gather my things and we can be on our way.” She stood when the valet quietly entered the room once more, Peggy’s every-day bag and coat on his arm for her. She stashed the wig and the little silver handbag, somehow still on her wrist even through the tussle in the basement, in the purse and let the valet help her into her coat. The Ambassador offered her the fur she’d been wearing; something of Victoria’s to complete the illusion of unabashed privilege.

“Keep it.”

“You’re very kind, but I couldn’t.”

He nodded, his face looking his age and incredibly weary all at once. “Out the back door with you, then. Get back safely. Tell your landlady I shall have words with her if she has anything to say about your lateness.”

“Yes, sir.”

They stepped cautiously out into the chilly night air. Steve offered his arm and she looped hers loosely through it, enough closeness to appear casual and intimate but retaining the ability to split to run or fight if the need arose.

Peggy catalogued the information she had gathered in her head once more. In the morning she would leave before the rest of the girls went down to breakfast. She’d head downtown to brief the SRR Chief and the rest of SHIELD’s board of directors. They would figure out what to do about Karpov and Lukin and the agent they called _the spider_. She’d skin Howard for getting himself involved in this mess after he explained to her just why exactly he was developing weaponry. When she got back home for dinner the girls would think the worst and she would insist that she’d caught and elbow on the subway or slipped and fell on her skates at the telephone company. She’d ring up the embassy and make sure the Ambassador was all right and send a bouquet over to Isadore’s wife for her troubles.

It was a surprisingly short distance from the embassy to Peggy’s boarding house. Just a few blocks up and one over. It felt like it was taking an age and a half to get there, wary as she was of every shadow. It seemed that if the Russians had her marked that they wouldn’t make their move tonight.

She bypassed the front doors and walked quietly toward the side alley. “Are you coming?” Steve looked at her dumbly for a moment before following her to the service entrance that would let them into the laundry room, a spare key hidden by residents previous allowing them inside.

Steve’s hands fluttered from his hips to hers and up over her face like crazed moths around a light. “Peggy, I—“ She put her hand up, fingertips against his lips to silence him. He closed his mouth and shoved his hands into his pockets like a scolded schoolboy. Peggy rucked up her coat and the hem of her dress to click the switch on her recorder to _off_ and unhook it from her garter belt. She disconnected it from the wire that ran up her front and dropped it into her bag with the pieces of her disguise. Apologies and concern tumbled out of Steve’s lips like she’d turned on a faucet after that.

“Peg, I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry. I blew it. I know I did. When I was stallin’em. I shouldda held ‘em longer, I knew it. Or…or I said something and outted you and it’s my fault—“

“Steve.”

“You’re hurt.”

“Lukin jumped Izzy and I on the stairs.”

“It’s my fault.”

“No, it’s not.” She reached up and tucked a stray lock of glossy blond hair back into place from where it had fallen across his eyes. “It wasn’t your fist, was it?” He ducked his head down and brushed his lips against the bruise like he could magically heal her that way. He moved to her opposite cheek, his skin sliding smoothly against hers, absurdly warm against her wind-burned flesh. She turned to catch his lips, their noses sliding side by side.

Peggy gripped the front of Steve’s coat hard. Her carefully controlled surge of adrenaline rushing to the surface and making her hands shake with the effort of holding onto the stiff wool. She dragged him back against the wall beside the washing machine, through a curtain of stockings pegged up to dry on the line. The overwhelming warmth of him towering over her while she used his body to crowd herself in chased away the cold of their walk from the embassy and the dulled the pang of fear she’d refused to admit was there in her gut.

“Peg, I—“

Her fingers worked at the buttons of his coat while she hushed him. “Just kiss me.”

Peggy’s body prickled with adrenaline for an entirely new reason. Steve’s calloused hands found her shoulders and throat, lips following close behind. His fingers threaded into her hair and prodded comfortingly at her scalp. She pulled at her own buttons with frantic hands, grounded between the hard cement wall and Steve’s hard body. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her roughly. She cried out in discomfort at the touch to her bruise.

Steve pulled away, face painted with concern.

Peggy pulled him back in, fingers tight in his hair and at his collar.

Big hands roamed over her flanks under the open coat. He hunched down and gathered her up in his arms, drawing her legs up on either side of his body. His mouth worked in a hungry pace across her clavicle. The sounds of the rustling fabric of her dress her own heavy breath echoed through the laundry room. She moved her body against him, wanting to touch and be touched everywhere at once. He groaned out loud, the sound vibrating pleasantly against the shell of her ear beside his lips, when he gripped her thigh, the band of her holster under his fingers.

“Steve… _Steve_!” He looked positively wrecked when he peered down at her with heavy-lidded eyes and flushed cheeks and kiss-wet mouth. “Upstairs.” His eye searched her face questioningly. “Upstairs.”

The fire of the moment doused, but the heat in her belly withstanding, Peggy prodded Steve toward the dumbwaiter. She couldn’t help but laugh to see him contorted to fit inside. Large as it was, Steve was a rather big man to accommodate. She began to close the doors and thought better of it, shoving her purse and coat through and pecking him lightly on the lips before sealing him up inside the tight space.

Peggy took a moment to compose herself before heading up the stairs. The main floor seemed to be clear, one girl snoozing with a book in her lap near the fireplace in the sitting room. She took a moment to squeeze her name in between two girls who signed in for the night at ten, her neat cursive looking perfectly in place on the page full of names and times, and mounted the stairs and climbed with purpose to the third floor.

“Miss Carter!” Peggy froze at the shrill scolding tone of the matron. “It is _well_ past curfew.”

“Yes, ma’am. I was back before ten-thirty.” It wasn’t a lie. She and Steve were in the laundry room, Peggy watched the second hand on the clock on the opposite wall tick off the last moments of the minute before curfew while Steve lifted her up.

“I didn’t see you come in.”

Peggy turned slowly, trying to buy time before the matron saw the bruise on her cheek. “With all due respect, ma’am, the doors are locked at half-past. I wouldn’t be here if I had been late.”

“Good heavens, Miss Carter!”

Peggy touched her cheek sheepishly and tried her best to look ashamed. “It looks worse than it is, truly.”

“What happened?”

“Well, I took the subway uptown—to make sure I was home before curfew, of course—and an older gentleman got up to give me his seat. Such a sweet man. I was insisting he sit when the train started to move and he lost his footing. I got a bit of an elbow in the face, unfortunately.”

The matron narrowed her eyes, visibly deciding whether or not to believe Peggy’s story.

“The subway is such an unseemly place for a lady. Perhaps next time you will be home earlier or hail a cab.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Peggy started toward her room once again.

“May I ask what you are doing roaming around at this hour, Miss Carter?”

“Oh!” She bit her lip and feigned embarrassment. “Katherine was so kind to loan me her dress for the night and it’s just so beautiful and I’ve never owned anything like it; I haven’t been able to bring myself to take it off quite yet. But I’m afraid I’ve torn down the hem a bit. I think it happened on the subway. I’ve just popped down to the laundry room to see if there might be some red thread in the sewing kit down there. I haven’t got any.”

The matron pursed her lips and turned, motioning for Peggy to follow. “I believe I have some, Miss Carter. You cannot return that garment damaged.”

“Oh, thank you ma’am.” She had to resist rolling her eyes as she followed.

***

Steve held his breath while he listened to Peggy give her landlady a song and dance and their footsteps echoed down the empty hallway. He’d fished Peggy’s key out of her bag and was steeling himself to make a run for it. He pried the dumbwaiter doors open slowly.

“English? English, you out he’a?”

Steve had met her a few times, he liked her. She worked at an automat Peggy liked and had come out to the dancehall with them once. She and Bucky had gotten on friendly enough for having nothing in common and zero interest in each other and the dame could certainly cut a rug, but the whole night had left him feeling a little like there was a train rushing through his head. Angie had an opinion on everything and no reason not to tell you.

Bucky said she reminded him very vaguely of some scrawny punk he used to know.

Steve closed the doors as quietly as he could only to have them open again quickly a heartbeat later. He drew himself as far back against the wall as his bent position would allow and put his hands up in surrender.

Thank goodness it was only Angie. She snorted in amusement and offered him a hand out. “Not climbin’ the side’a the buildin’ tonight?” She spoke in hushed tones and closed the dumbwaiter behind him. “That was a close call, Spangles, you could be a dead man right now.” Steve agreed quietly and allowed Angie to herd him into her room.

“I have Peggy’s key, Ang, I’kin just wait in there.”

“Nuh uh, I wanna he’a how she got you in straight from the horse’s mouth and what the hell happened on the train.” Steve sighed and resigned himself to his captivity. She offered him the seat at her vanity and bounced down onto the bed. “Ya show’er a good time at that party? The comp’ny shindig?” He opened his mouth to answer and was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. His eyes widened in fear at the possibility of being caught and how awful it would look. Angie giggled. “You’re too funny, Spangles. That’s Peg’s knock.” She got up to answer the door, letting it swing wide. “Oh my god!”

“Angie! Hush, please!” Peggy gasped in surprise as she was pulled into the room, a spool of red threat clutched in her hand.

“What happened?” All her other questions and demands seemed to be forgotten.

“Nothing!”

“English, that does not look like nothin’. That looks like a whole lotta somethin’.”

“It was noth—“

Angie whirled around to face Steve, anger radiating off of her. “Did you do that? I don’t care if you’re a goddamned national icon, I will _deck you_ , so help me—“

“Angie! It wasn’t Steve!” Angie looked from Peggy to Steve and back. “It happened at work.”

She stuttered for a moment. “At _the phone company_?” She made quotes in the air with her fingers. Steve knew that Peggy’s friend didn’t know the details of Peggy’s actual job, but knew enough.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” The anger seemed to melt away.

“You’d tell me if it was somethin’ else?” She jerked her head in Steve’s direction.

“Angie, I’d hold him down so you could take care of it yourself.”

Angie grinned in Steve’s direction after she decided Peggy was being earnest. “You two workin’ tonight?”

Steve cleared his throat, unsure how to answer. Angie laughed and told them to have fun and shoved them out the door after she’d checked to see the coast was clear. She snorted as she closed the door, “Betty Carver my eye…”

***

“She’s a pistol.” Steve closed the door and turned the lock. Peggy tossed her bag and coat and the spool of thread on her vanity chair. “Oof!” He laughed quietly as she pushed him up against the door. “Landlady caught ya, huh?”

“Mhm.” Her fingers worked at the knot in his tie, loosening it and whipping the strip of silk away from his neck. She moved down the line of buttons on his shirt, pressing her lips to his newly exposed throat. He melted into her attention like he was becoming part of the door. She yanked his shirttails up and ran her fingers up over his belly beneath his undershirt. He was watching her with interest, making her self-conscious. She blushed and moved her hands to his shoulders; he wiggled them to help her slide his coat and suit jacket and shirt off all at once. He leaned into her away from the door and the tangle of garments dropped in a heap to the floor behind him.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her impossibly close. “What a seduction.” He kissed her breathless, presumably trying to regain their momentum.

“Don’t crack jokes. I’ll get Angie in here to tell you off.” They laughed and moved into the room, adrenaline and heat gone from the moment even if the desire remained. Steve let her go to sit on the bed and untie his shoes. Peggy kicked her own off where she stood and went to the dresser. The false bottom of a drawer hid ammunition and the gun she removed from her person and important odds and ends and a thin packet of condoms.

Steve pulled his undershirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. Peggy undid the hook and eye at the front of her wrap and set it aside, bright orange packet between her teeth. She crowded him at the edge of the bed, making him lie back. He took the packet from her. “Prevents nervous strain… and pregnant covert operatives.” Peggy paused in her work at his belt to tell him he was awful.

They kissed slowly, lazily, their lack of urgency turning them sweet. Soon enough, Steve was hard and hard-bodied and naked and splayed across the bed watching Peggy roll the condom onto his waiting cock. She scooted back off the bed, Steve’s lips following her as she went, and stood up to offer her back and the dress’s zipper. She shivered at his light touch and sighed in relief at the feel of air on her skin.

***

Margaret Carter was resplendent in her under things and stockings and empty holster. She looked at him over her shoulder. “Going to help me out of these?” Steve looked up at her, feeling the adoration register on his face. He shook his head. She sighed again when he wrapped his arms around her hips and pressed kisses at the small of her back. “Darling.” She turned in his arms and he kissed her navel, peeking just over the top of her garter belt.

Peggy smiled softly down at him, combing his hair back with her fingers. He rested his chin against her belly, reveling in the touch. His cock twitched, ignored and wanting. Sitting there on the edge of the bed, he ran his hands down over one thigh, lifting her leg as he went to rest her foot on his knee. He carefully unclipped the top of her stocking and rolled the smooth silk sheath down, committing the dimple in her shapely calf when she pointed her toes to memory. He repeated the task, careful to work the stocking out from underneath her holster without snagging it.

Peggy shook her head, “Just take it off.”

“No.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a flare for the dramatic?”

“You.”

“It bears repeating.” He mirrored her sly smile, watching it fade when her mouth slowly went slack. He stroked her gently over the soft cotton between her legs. Her eyes fluttered closed. Steve wiggled his fingers beneath the shiny satin of the belt at her waist, enjoying the contrast between the fabrics, amused by the mismatch. He curled his fingers over the waistband of the panties and rolled them down until the holster stopped them. He paused a moment, bracing himself for whatever the consequences of the poor decision he was about to make may be.

Steve gripped the side seam of the panties and yanked. They ripped open with the satisfying sound of snapping threads.

Peggy’s eyes flew open, her mouth an _O_ of outrage. “I just made those.”

“Guess your sewin’s a little shabby. They just fell off. Barely touched ‘em.” The unripped side of the panties slid down her leg to pool around her foot.

“You owe me a new pair.”

Steve could deal with that. He’d buy her ten new pairs in every color they made.

And then rip those off too.

He gripped her hips and pushed her back, sliding off the bed and onto his knees. All the better to nestle his face into the curly hair at the juncture of her thighs and insinuate his tongue into the warmth of her lips. Peggy’s fingers gripped his shoulders tightly, “Steve, stop _teasing._ ” He got to his feet quickly at her insistence and sidestepped her around the foot of the bed. She made a surprised sound when he whisked her up off her feet and planted her against the wall alongside the window. Her legs moved around his waist as if on instinct. Her arms held tight around his neck.

Supporting her body with one arm, Steve reached down beneath her to grip himself. A loose fist stroked once. Twice. Her fingers threaded into the hair at the back of his head and pulled. She caught his mouth with hers, stealing his breath away. She squirmed, jerking her body against him and locking her ankles. He rubbed the head of his cock back and forth, drawing small, pleased sounds out of her and swallowing each one in turn.

“Steve, please.”

He pressed in slowly, tilting his pelvis up into her. She moaned openly.

“Shh. The neighbors.” She laughed breathily, the sound dissolving into short huffs of air as he began to thrust back and forth.

They went on lazily for several minutes, kissing and huffing, the wetness between Peggy’s legs easing the in-and-out glide.

The position was doing nothing for either of them, that much was overwhelmingly obvious.

Steve shifted his balance, the grip of Peggy’s legs around him slackening.

“ _Oh._ ” Her body sank down, knees resting against the crooks of his elbows. Her chest heaved up and down, straining against the top edge of her strapless brassier. The complete envelopment of warmth was overwhelming against the cooler atmosphere near the window. He edged back a step, forcing her to arch her back and rest her shoulders against the flowered wallpaper.

 _God_ , that was hideous wallpaper.

Her hands gripped his upper arms and she slipped one leg down tentatively, her toes barely resting against the floor. Arm freed, Steve braced his hand against the cold glass of the window, feeling the burn of it even with the curtain between his palm and the surface. He opened his mouth to speak and she nodded her assent to his unspoken request.

Peggy bit her bottom lip as if to hold every gasp and groan in, her teeth very white against the red paint. He started slowly, rolling his hips up into the humidity between them. The pressure of her neat fingernails against his skin encouraged him, the scrape of the holster on her thigh against his forearm sending him reeling. He pressed his forehead to her chest, his body hunched and jerking, fingers gripping whatever he was touching. She whined, the sound of it high and nasal, as her body fluttered and contracted. She held onto him, her body boneless as he reached his own end with a quiet grunt.

Steve eased her down onto the floor, rolling their foreheads together and kissing her softly as they caught their respective breaths. “I thought I fucked up tonight.” She flinched slightly at his now very cold palm against her cheek, bruise all but forgotten. “I thought I lost you.”

***

Peggy wallowed in the warmth of Steve’s body curled around hers in the narrow bed. He had a habit of trying to make himself as small as he could and never quite succeeding. She wished they could lie there all morning, but the office was pulling her in like she had invisible strings about her wrists. She knew he was awake when he snuggled closer, his body curling tighter.

“You’re going down that gutter.”

“Not the dumbwaiter?”

“Not unless you want the landlady catching you while she’s washing her knickers.”

“You know just how to kill the mood, ya know that?”

Someone knocked sharply on the door. “Hey, English! Look alive! Breakfast in ten and the eggs are _real_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took me a while to get out. Started writing it on Christmas; I had it nearly finished and then decided to do some editing to try to fit more history things in it. Then there was a call for more sex. Then I decided to scrap half of what I'd written. Then I had ridiculous writer's block. Ultimately, I really fucking hate the way this chapter turned out but it's done and I don't give the slightest flying fuck about it anymore. Alright. Reference point time.
> 
> The rumba was popularized in the ballroom scene in the '30s although to my knowledge it wasn't considered the most tasteful of dances. But I can see Bucky picking it up really easily/quickly and being _that guy_ that asks the band to play something he can dance to and show off a little and have fun turning some dame around on the floor.
> 
> Here's Peggy's dressand bag, you can totally buy them from _1stdibs_ if you have the cash for it:  
> 
> 
> I've used the same prosthesis for Bucky as I use in all my other _Everything is fine and everyone lives and I'm not crying , you are_ pieces. I've also taken a little bit of liberty with Lukin's age here and made him a bit older. In Brubaker's run, Karpov, and later Lukin, are the ones who make and utilize the Winter Solider. In CATWS, Lukin is Pierce if that offers more perspective to those who aren't comic fans. Also mentioned in that run is the special training that Bucky got and Karpov's interest in him as an efficient killer in hand-to-hand.
> 
> People who've watched _Agent Carter_ or read the comics will recognize the shout out to the extended Howling Commando network. Agents Cohen and Manelli are part of comic-Fury's WWII squad, both Brooklyn boys like Steve.
> 
> The Hotel Astor was a huge, swanky place in Times Square that ran from just about the turn of the century to almost 1970. Today, its spot is occupied by a huge office building that most Americans will probably recognize as the studio MTV shot TRL in with the big windows that guests waved to the crowd below from.
> 
> The _Commando Cocktail_ Is a real thing that was served at the Stork Club. I haven't had one, I just found it exceedingly funny that it existed when I was looking for historically relevant food and drink. If anyone of legal age to imbibe wants to try it an report back on whether or not Dum Dum has good taste in drinks, here's the recipe:  
>  1 1/2 oz. bourbon  
> 2/4 oz. triple sec  
> 2 dashes pernod  
> juice of half lime  
> Shake and serve in a 3 oz. cocktail glass
> 
> The dinner that gets served is basically the Christmas menu from _Good Housekeeping Cookbook_ 1944 revised edition. It sounded extravagant and party-ish to me so there you go, dinner is served.
> 
> Karpov's rant starts off with: "Captain America, bah! That worthless dog. I am so tired of..." As always, if you speak the language and can offer a correction, please do!
> 
> As late as 1942, there were still people getting trapped in buildings and dying during emergencies because of inadequate stairs and locked doors (check out the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and Cocoanut Grove fires). So it probably wouldn't be odd for Pegs to get stopped there.
> 
> The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (featured in _A League of Their Own_ ) was a real, and awesome, thing that ran from 1943-54.
> 
>  _Le Mademoiselle_ was Peg's codename in the field in the comics, she was a master of disguise there too! And her roller skates were an idea from watching _Changeling_ in which Angelina Jolie's character is a switchboard manager and skates around the office, and, well, dammit, I want to imagine Peggy in her fabulous outfits rolling around the office in a pair of skates. Let a girl dream. And yes, ladies often made their own underwear among other clothing items for themselves and their families during the war because of rationing and I imagine the skills/habit may have persisted for some time.
> 
> For some reason whenever I mention Steggy condom-usage anons on tumblr don't believe me that they existed? Prophylactics as we know them were a thing, guys, really. I promise. Google is your friend. Here's the packet I was thinking of in the scene:  
> 
> 
> As ever, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading and for the feedback.


	10. Challenge Ten: Sweet and Passionate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy is working hard to get SHIELD established as a legitimate intelligence and enforcement organization within the borders of the United States and overseas. Her job is made complicated by the persistence of HYDRA and the growing threat of Leviathan and the Red Room Academy. Over the course of the infancy of SHIELD, Howard Stark launches what everyone believes to be a benign project only to reap disaster.
> 
> In the present day, Steve struggles to come to terms with the things he's lost in the first month since he was discovered in the frozen wreckage of the Valkyrie and subsequently woken. While little time has passed for Steve, the rest of the world has moved on. While he can accept that, he cannot accept what he believes is malicious deception by an organization he wants so earnestly to trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Referenced Gabriel Jones/Peggy Carter.
> 
> I thought I'd try more of an omnipresent narrator voice while still organizing the story according to POV? I'm not sure if I like how it turned out. Let me know if we're preferring things that are "This is Peggy's inner monologue" and "This is Steve's inner monologue" like I've done with the earlier ones? There was quite a bit of time between writing the main action and then getting to the sex scene, so I'm fairly sure that I completely dropped that voice anyway :/
> 
> Lot's of time and perspective hopping to establish frame of mind for everyone. There's a test at the end, so pay attention, kiddos!

It was like coming down off of the high that smoking one of his asthma cigarettes gave him when he was small and sickly. Heart pumping wildly; head feeling like he was swimming through syrup. Then suddenly the world would snap into focus and he’d become aware of each of his limbs again. The pain in his back. The burning in his stomach. The ache in his head from looking at things through squinted eyes. The general feeling of exhaustion that seemed to constantly cloak him.

Those first few days in May were a whirlwind.

The Heavens had opened up and spat out men who claimed to be gods and magic staves and creatures from space.

He’d given up his life—or meant to—to keep the world from being set ablaze for that goddamned Cosmic Cube. And it had all been for naught, apparently.

Howard had found it in the water just days after. He’d kept it, trying to unlock its secrets, trying to harness the thing’s power for some spark of good. In the end it had been nothing but destruction. The Cube was locked away for safe keeping, hopefully never to see the light of day again for the damage it had done. Until someone decided it was a damned good idea to pull it out of storage and start playing with it, of course.

As if that was enough to make up for what he’d read in the files that Nick Fury had given him to get him up to speed on what had happened to the people he loved in the time he’d spent in the ice.

He found it hard to look at the new Stark without thinking of the father and wanting to flip a table. The fact that they were all bolted down didn’t really matter. He knew Tony had nothing to do with it, but the betrayal was too raw to think reasonably. And _Christ_ he really was so much like Howard, even if he refused to see it himself—the Howard that Steve had known, at least.

But being part of a team, using the gift he’d been given by Erskine to help protect those who couldn’t protect themselves, it had done wonders in bringing him back to something like he’d felt in those early days of deployment.

His heart thudded against his ribs and his head swam with strategy and noise and the rush of adrenaline that came with battle.

And then it was over just as soon as it had begun.

The first thing he noticed was how completely weary he felt. Not just physically tired, but _weary_. His body ached, the pain of it settled deep in his bones and his brain. His stomach burned with emptiness that he couldn’t seem to fill even after eating an entire large pizza on his own. He threw it up, stomach churning with the meaninglessness of it all, and did his best to ignore the burn.

He felt useless in the absence of battle. He lived in the moments when his cellular phone _dinged_ with a text message from Agent Romanov or Barton suggesting that he try some restaurant or picture house or gallery, the space in between feeling meaningless. He knew full well that they were acting as agents, keeping him stable and usable, but the illusion of budding friendship still felt good.

He almost wished the heavens would open up again and unleash some new monster for him to fight.

So when his phone rang and Fury told him it was very important that he report to SHIELD HQ as soon as possible, he practically sprinted to the parking garage, ignoring the bewildered stares from crowds on the footpath as he sped across the Brooklyn Bridge with his shield on his back.

“You need to be made aware of this situation, Captain.”

“Anything you need. I’ll suit up.”

The man shook his head, “That won’t be necessary. Come with me.”

Confused and aggravated that Fury was being evasive, he allowed himself to be led onto an elevator and up to the medical floor. Fury bypassed the clearance that blocked the two of them from entering the quarantine area. They stopped in front of a sleek steel door with a _13_ emblazoned on it in tall red digits. He craned his neck over Fury’s shoulder to look at the viewing window. The dim light of the corridor hinted that the window might be a one-way mirror. “Captain Rogers, I need you to understand that this is going to come as a bit of a shock… shocked the hell out of all of us and we’re still trying to make sense of it ourselves.”

He furrowed his brow, unable to make any sort of connection between himself and whatever could be behind the door in quarantine bay number thirteen. His mind raced, running through every worst-case scenario with none of them fitting. Fury punched in a code on the access panel beside the door and it slid open with a hiss of air.

“Don’t I need a mask or something?” He knew enough about contagious disease to know that if someone were in quarantine, you’d best not breathe the same air they are. Fury shook his head and stepped aside to allow a free path through the door.

Steve stepped past the director and into the room. There was a woman sitting high on the bed, her back against the wall and her knees drawn up to rest her forehead against. The dark hair pulled back into a loose braid and the bright red scrubs she was dressed in were the only spots of color in the sterile, brightly lit room.

“Ma’am?”

Her body visibly tensed. She picked her head up slowly. Her face contorted, moving from what looked like fear to disgust to grief in the blink of an eye. “Steve?” she whispered.

He opened his mouth to speak and nothing came out. He could feel the heat rise in his face and neck, his own anger and grief flaring, licking up his spine like a flame.

She was perfectly still, waiting for him to respond.

Steve turned on his heel and walked out the door.

***

March had been an absolute whirlwind.

Peggy worked the Zodiac case solo.

Howard called the following morning to discuss the possibility of founding a new intelligence and enforcement agency.

Colonel Phillips met Peggy halfway across the country when her flight from Idlewild—no, it was _Major General Alexander E. Anderson Airport_ according to her boarding pass, though she’d never heard anyone call it by that name—touched down somewhere on an airfield in the middle of nowhere. They’d stopped seven times already and there was still more than twelve hours of flying ahead. Jarvis had offered to send her over in one of Howard’s private crafts and Peggy declined. She’d wanted to see America as she crossed it.

Steve and Bucky had chattered on quite a bit about their own desire to do so. Late at night when no one could sleep, they’d murmur into the darkness of whatever makeshift camp they’d set up. When Peggy wasn’t with their group, and it wasn’t too terribly important that communication be kept free and clear, she would patch in to their radio to listen to what the next leg of the trip would be. They wove plans for a year-long road trip when the war ended. They’d weave their way up and down and across the country. See the Falls at Niagara and stand across the border line to be able to say they were two places at once. Eat lobster in Maine. Go fishing in Florida. Square dance in Texas. Have their fortunes told in New Orleans. Sleep under the stars at the Grand Canyon. Run through the rain in Washington and lie on the beach in California.

_“And when we’re ready to come home, we’ll visit all the places we skipped.”_

_“Will you pick the rest of us up on the way?”_

_“Whaddaya think? We’re gonna drive a goddamned bus? Not a chance. Punk’ll drive the bike’n I’ll sit nice and pretty in the sidecar with the wind blowin’ through my hair.”_

_“But Carter gets to go?”_

_“Her jokes’re better, Dum. We’d actually enjoy havin’ ‘er around.”_

_“Peggy doesn’t joke.”_

_“Pree-cise-ly.”_

_“Cap’ll pick us up.”_

_“Literally.”_

_“You keep this up and I’ll take the trip all on my own. And Peggy does joke. You fat-heads are just to thick to get ‘em.”_

Her own cross-country jaunt hadn’t been a fraction as pleasant as the one the boys had planned in their heads. It had been fraught with screaming children and a young man who was petrified to be in the air. A woman who had fallen asleep heavily on Peggy’s shoulder. Turbulence. Extra fuel stops. Switching planes not once, but twice.

She’d seen hardly anything of the country she was now calling her home.

But Phillips was the same old loveable curmudgeon. The war had taken its toll on him. He’d come out the other side looking ten years older than he was and far quieter. But being home seemed to have renewed him. He still looked tired, but not as weary. His company made the eight remaining stops and handful of hours feel far less like eternity.

They touched down at Los Angeles International to find Howard’s driver waiting for them.

The warm California air was a stark contrast to the chilly New York Spring. It was like she’d run fast forward through time from March to May in the course of those twenty-five hours of stop-and-go flying.

“Hey there, Peg.” Howard smirked and stretched on this poolside lounger. He took a long sip from his icy glass before standing and putting his hands on his hips, splaying open his richly embroidered robe and showing off his brightly striped swim trunks. Sunshine looked good on him, she had to admit.

“Put yer damned clothes on and get down ta business, Stark.”

“Hello to you too, Chester, m’boy.”

Phillips rolled his eyes and turned to Peggy, “Remind me again why I agreed ta this gobbledygook?”

Peggy laughed. It was good to have them back again.

By the middle of April, they were settling into Camp Leigh.

It was strange to be there again. The last time Peggy had stood in that place had been the early hours of the morning of the Rebirth procedure. It made her chest feel tight and her stomach turn over. She’d gained and lost so much since then. The first night, lying in her narrow bed in what was once the officers’ quarters, sleep evaded her. She listened to Phillips’ quiet snoring across the hall. Counted the rows of brick going up the wall. Got out of bed and paced back and forth to try to burn off the energy that kept her awake.

In the end she found herself walking through the training grounds, drawn toward the running path. It was close to dawn when she reached the flagpole. No banner flew there now, but it still made the same satisfying racket when she yanked the pin out of the anchor at the bottom and the pole hit the ground. Peggy smiled and wiped her hands on her trousers and headed back in the direction of the main camp.

April felt as though everything was coming together and falling apart all at once.

The world was still learning how to not be at war.

SHIELD was getting off the ground.

Gabriel Jones came back from the field to serve as one of their first agents. Peggy found herself happier than she’d been in quite some time in his company. He didn’t infuriate her the way Howard was want to. He was gentle and intelligent and free with his smiles and laughter. She practiced her German and French with him, taught him to read Russian and to decode the transmissions that they picked up on the remote typewriter they’d acquired from the SSR and repurposed. They trained recruits and played cards in the mess hall and Peggy learned how to be herself again in ways that she didn’t realize she no longer knew with the comforts of living in the glow Angie’s friendship and the begrudging respect of the other SSR agents and ways that only clicked into place when she had hard-packed earth beneath her boots and a rifle in her hands and sweat on her brow.

Peggy and Gabe and Colonel Phillips were putting their group of aspiring SHIELD agents through their paces. Disillusioned G-men, SSR, police. Men who had become men suddenly and violently when thrown into war and needed a place to use the skills they’d come to know best. Doctors and nurses forged in local clinics and bloody battlefields. Code-breakers and linguists. Pilots. Reporters who lived double lives over enemy lines. Academics and historians with new theories to offer. WAC ladies and riveters and women who knew the precise amount of each volatile chemical that was necessary to make a functional projectile bomb. Mechanics and engineers. They all found a place at SHIELD and they were all tried and tested against Abraham Erskine’s scale of goodness and usefulness and the gut intuition of Peggy and the people she trusted.

“Let’s go!” Peggy strolled up and down the ranks, evaluating their physicality. “An agent of SHIELD is not a person who will sit behind a desk and wait for things to come to them! Knees up! Faster!”

They’d come from around the country for a chance to join the elite intelligence agency and play their part in keeping the world safe.

“When a Black Widow has you in her sights, she will not give you room to catch your breath!” Peggy glanced at her stopwatch and made her way back to the front of the ranks. “Hang it up ladies and gentlemen, I believe you’ve all just earned breakfast.”

She spent the rest of the morning calling in favors with the British embassy, trying to establish a foothold for SHIELD overseas. After lunchtime, Jones came to find her.

“How are they doing?”

“They’re getting’ there. Frenchie finally answered us. He’ll come in next month to train ‘em up in makin’ things go _boom_. Sounded pretty thrilled there’s already a few in the bunch with some know-how.”

“It’ll be wonderful to see him again.” Peggy swung her legs up onto her desk and nudged her tin of biscuits toward him, taking a moment to chew the rather large piece she’d bitten off. Angie had forwarded the tin along from Molly Bowden, a thank you for a good tip on an available room. Molly didn’t need to know why there was so much wear-and-tear on the bedposts. “I wish I could have all of you here.”

“Not sure if that would be extremely pleasant or a complete disaster.” He chuckled and inspected the tin before choosing the most evenly formed treat. “That dame you were roomin’ with has been callin’ all morning.”

“I do miss her.”

“So take a weekend. We can hold down the fort for a few days.”

“I think I will.”

Peggy drove from Camp Leigh into Manhattan the following afternoon. Hearing “Hey, English!” as she stepped in through the doors of the _21 Club_ had never felt more glorious. Returning to the new SHIELD headquarters felt like waking from an exceedingly pleasant dream. The Howlers in the field were seeing increasing resistance from HYDRA holdouts led by a man called Whitehall. They were rounding up strange artifacts with stranger mythologies surrounding them.

“Peg,” Dugan’s voice crackled on the long-distance call. They would need to get better telecommunications systems installed. Howard kept saying he would take care of it; that he would put in a completely secure, un-tappable network. He kept putting it off in favor of another project he only made vague allusions to. It made the hair on the back of Peggy’s neck stand up. Howard didn’t exactly have a clean record when it came to secret projects. “Peg, we need you here. We’re cuttin’ off heads as fast as we can and it just isn’t good enough—not with HYDRA regroupin’ and the Russians to worry about. We got attacked again last night. I’m not sure how much longer we’kin hold out. We need them agents Jonesy says yer trainin’ up and we need you ta organize this thing.”

***

Steve’s eyes stung with the salt of angry tears he refused to allow to fall. He wouldn’t let Fury see that. Hell, he didn’t even let the head-shrinker SHIELD made him see after they pulled him out of the ice see that.

Even after they’d pulled that whole charade with the fake recovery room—a charade he’d seen right through from the moment his conscious brain processed that it was hearing a radio broadcast of a baseball game that was long since over, not to mention the haphazard way they’d thrown that dame together—he’d chosen to trust Fury and SHIELD at large. He realized that it had been a sort of test, an evaluation without letting him know what was happening, even if they insisted that they’d only wanted to make waking up easier on him and admittedly had done it very poorly.

Fury had given him the old personnel files. Agent Hill had explained to him how the organization had started. He trusted SHIELD because he trusted something that was tied so closely to Peggy. She wouldn’t put her name on something sour. He trusted SHIELD because the men he had come to call family were it’s first agents. He trusted SHIELD because they’d eradicated HYDRA.

But now they were pulling this… this _bullshit_. Did they really believe that he’d think what he saw in that room was _real?_ After what his introduction to the place was? The lies? The secrecy? The outright manipulation?

There was not a chance in hell that the woman in that bed was Peggy. They’d certainly found a goddamned dead-ringer; that was for sure.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” The door slid shut. The electronic lock engaged with a series of beeps and lights. “Or is it another test?” He started down the corridor, turning around to glare at the door, all sense of outward couth in the presence of a superior officer fled him along with every last bit of vocal training the people who ran the USO tour had dumped on him. “This’s _fuckin’ sick._ Peggy is dead. I read the files. I listened t’every debriefin’ you people gave me. She’s _gone_. I d’know who—,” he jabbed his index finger in the direction of the room he’d come out of. The woman was standing now, looking at the mirror on her side of the wall, staring through her reflection. She hugged herself tightly as if she was afraid she would physically fall to pieces, though her expression was resolute. “—or _what_ ya have in there.”

Aliens and mythological beings existed. What else was possible? Clones? Robots? Ghosts? An image of the director in a white laboratory coat, leaning over an operating table and slapping together a… a… _Furystein_ monster—vivid and loud—shoved its way into the forefront of his imagination.

Fury slipped his hands into his pockets, his face passive and impossible to read. “I thought I gave my life. I said my g’byes, as awful as they were. I was ready’da die. Wakin’ up decades in’na the future wasn’t in my plans. The very least you people could do is not intention’ly fuck with my head. I’m tryin’. I’m tryin’ _so hard._ ”

Steve sucked in a deep breath and shifted his shoulders under the comforting weight of the shield. “I think…” Another breath. “I think that unless creatures from space attack th’ Earth again, that you people shouldn’t call me.”

He strode to the end of the corridor and slapped the button to open the door. He’d figure out this world on his own. It wouldn’t be the first time he had nothing.

***

Peggy spent the next year hopping back and forth from SHIELD headquarters to every hole they could find fractions of HYDRA hiding in. They’d grown exponentially in that year. They had agents in the field in every corner of the globe. Their scientific division had expanded as they absorbed fresh-faced university graduates and seasoned researchers alike. The extended network of Howling Commandos became a force to be reckoned with as covert operatives in ways that none of them had ever imagined in open battle during the War.

Her plane touched down on the modest airfield they’d inherited with the Camp Leigh facility. It felt wonderful to be home. She’d missed out on Easter. Angie had finally landed her first role, she’d planned to celebrate with a big holiday meal at the modest apartment she’d saved up for while living at the house Stark had given to she and Peggy and rented near the theater district and had intended to invite all of the girls she still got on with from the Griffith.

With the most dangerous of HYDRA’s heads finally in custody and held in an unnamed facility, Peggy looked forward to not having to miss another happy occasion for quite some time.

In that year, Peggy and the rest of the leadership of SHIELD had made some very important decisions regarding the Cosmic Cube, as well. It had come to light that the project Howard had been developing centered around the powerful artifact. He wanted to attempt to harness its energy, though insisted it would not be in the same way Schmidt had.

“This thing… this thing is an incredible resource. I think it can be a sort of…” He’d frowned, searching for adequate words. “Reverse Blitzkrieg Button.” Peggy remembered the device Howard had described to her but ultimately not produced. What followed was something she had no fondness for remembering. “Instead’a turnin’ all the lights out, why can’t we turn ‘em on? We can start here; see if we can get the place runnin’ independent of the public electrical grid. Maybe we’kin get the whole damn country runnin’ on it. Never be vulnerable again.”

“We wouldn’t be in danger of s’mun puttin’ out the lights if people like you didn’t find ways t’do it.” Phillips had come around eventually, Peggy following shortly thereafter. Howard would conduct his research well away from the main camp so as to not put the agents living and working there at risk. It seemed to be a pet project, most of his time dedicated to the continuing growth of his own company. Peggy had been surprised at the progress he seemed to have made in stops and starts each time she touched down stateside.

“T’day’s the day, Peg.” Gabriel rolled his eyes and chucked Peggy’s gear bag into the back of the jeep while Howard chattered. “May First, Nineteen-Hundred-Forty-Seven. It’ll go down in history as the day Howard Stark created the first truly efficient, self-sustaining energy system. Gonna light up the country—no, the _continent_. Put ol’ Edison and Tesla’da shame—Oof!”

Jones drove hard over an uneven patch of the dirt road through the camp. “Why stop there, Stark? How ‘bout the world?”

Howard grinned roguishly, “I like the way you think, Jones.”

Peggy and Gabriel sat together that evening in her office, going over the things she had missed in the last few weeks she’d spent hoofing it with Sawyer and Pinkerton through the Carpathian Mountains and surrounding land. There’d been some indication that the Red Room had begun new operations in the region. The mission had been a bust.

She slapped the file spread out in front of her shut and rubbed her eyes, burning with exhaustion. “Phillips is still in Washington. He called in to give us an update earlier today—thinks they might actually come through with the funding we’re askin’ for. We might be able to get somethin’ up and running on the west coast. Maybe get somethin’ solid goin’ for a foreign division so you wouldn’t have to puddle-hop so much.”

Peggy laughed, the sound devoid of any real mirth, “If only. Kuro managed to get us an update through one of his contacts while we were over there. It looks like they’re making progress in leaps and bounds. You’d think Howard was helping them.”

“Chin still with Yashonka?” Peggy nodded. His job was getting more dangerous every day. Sometimes Peggy wasn’t sure how people like him—double agents living deep in the structure of the opposition—managed to keep their heads. Playing a character for a mission was one thing, a thing she was _good_ at. Living as a character was an entirely different ordeal; one she found she didn’t enjoy at all in her short time at the Griffith. “Are we sure Stark’s not helping them?”

“That’s preposterous, Gabriel, and you know it.”

“I don’t mean directly. Look at his history—pretty lady seduces ‘im for a weekend and suddenly an entire vault full of half-baked inventions and weapons goes missing. Dooley, Yauch, Krzeminski… handful’a cops… entire picture audience,” he ticked off each on his fingers as he spoke, “Juniper and Li. People are dead ‘cause he can’t keep his pants on, Peg. I know… I know there was Finow to consider, and that wasn’t completely his fault, but Leviathan wouldn’t have gotten their hands on anything if it wasn’t for him.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I know. I’ve considered it.” She leaned forward again and reopened the file, staring at it unseeingly. “Why do you think I agreed to this Cosmic Cube project? Keeps him here. Keeps that thing here. I don’t think he’s working with them; he’s not that blind. But we need to have an eye on things.”

Peggy glanced over at the clock. It was nearing eleven. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into her narrow bed and sleep for the next three days. She surveyed her desk again, eyes falling on a tattered photograph she had framed there, the only personal touch. World-weary, but smiling faces stared out at her from behind the glass.

Peggy sat in the middle of the group. Steve to her left, her hand visible on his shoulder, his legs crossed. He was stripped down to the blue trousers and under-padding of the _Captain America_ uniform, discoloration from rain and river and sweat alike evident even in the black-and-white photo. Barnes sat to her right, his smart blue coat half unbuttoned and his rifle slung across his chest. Jones himself sat cross-legged in front of her, leant back comfortably against her knees. Morita, Dernier, Falsworth, and Dugan crowded behind with Dugan’s arms slung around them all to pull them in close. Her chest tightened with longing.

“What would you say to dropping everything—right now—and taking that road trip?”

Jones smiled softly and reached out to cover her hand with his. “I call sidecar.”

Peggy laughed at the mental picture of herself on a motorbike with Gabriel hunkered down in the sidecar beside her. “I was thinking a bus, actually. Order everyone over here, round them up and take off.”

“As long as Dugan isn’t allowed to drive.”

The lights flickered and swayed on the ceiling. They watched as the photograph fell forward, the glass shattering and then falling out of the frame in shards when Jones stood it back up. The office went completely dark.

“Gabriel?”

“Still here.”

Peggy stood and moved carefully around the edge of her desk, Jones’ warm hand holding hers and guiding her to him on the other side. “I can’t decide if we’re under attack or something’s gone wrong in the laboratory.”

The lights came back up, slowly brightening. She looked up, watching the glow get steadily brighter. “Gabriel, get down.”

They crouched down, throwing arms over their heads, Jones curling himself over Peggy, as the lights overhead burst and glass rained down over the office. It took several minutes before the emergency lights near the door came on, a dim red beacon guiding them as they picked their way carefully across the room.

People were slowly emerging from the offices and barracks and gymnasiums. The back-up generators appeared to have turned on, lights in the yard coming up gradually to illuminate the night. A young woman was racing across the yard from the direction of the science building. Her crisp, white laboratory coat flew out behind her like a great pair of wings. The pins holding her chignon in place popped out on one side as she ran.

“Agent Carter!” She waved her arms, a clipboard clutched tightly in one hand. “Agent Carter, please! Come quickly!”

Peggy turned to Jones. “I’ll get things under control here. Go.” She took off at a sprint, following the young woman who had come to fetch her.

“It’s Mr. Stark. He won’t listen! The apparatus is set up in the basement, it was the only space with enough room aside from the hangar, but if we built it there then no one would have easy access to the plane. It’s been causing small power surges all day and then about an hour ago we lost power completely. He insisted he could fix it, that the surges were nothing. We’ve got lanterns set up because we couldn’t get the power up in the building again. I think he fried the circuits!”

“I think he did more than kill your power. It looks like the whole camp is out.”

“Agent Carter, he listens to you! Please, I just don’t want anyone to get hurt! You know how he is when he thinks he’s on to something, I—“

“I will take care of it. Just get the building cleared.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Quickly.” The woman nodded and headed to take care of her duty, Peggy moved in the opposite direction, down the stairwell into the basement.

It was a huge room running the breadth of the building above it. Sure enough, there were lanterns hung around the perimeter and near the active working spaces. Peggy felt the horror register on her face. Howard had constructed a large arc at one end of the room, across from it, nearer to the workspace, was some kind of mount for the Cube. Power crackled and surged, electricity visibly dancing over the ropes of wiring coiled on the floor and feeding into the mount and arc.

A high-pitched whine filled the air. Stark’s assistants rushed around, calibrating and recalibrating and furiously writing down readings from gauges. Peggy threw an arm up to shield her eyes as blindingly blue light erupted from the cube and shot across the room toward the arc.

“Howard! Shut it down!”

“Peg! I got it! It works!”

He eased a lever up and gears and fans within the mount whirred to life. The ray of blue light expanded. Tendrils of energy reached out from the beam to caress whatever was nearest. A laboratory assistant screamed and jumped back as the energy touched the metal instrument he was holding. The energy poured into the arc, creating a wall of light within it perimeter. Peggy grabbed an assistant as he pushed past her.

“Go get help! We are shutting this down!” He nodded and dropped his clipboard where he stood before sprinting up the stairs. “Howard, shut it down _now_! That is an order!”

“But it’s working! There’s finally gonna be some good outta this damned thing.” He looked at her with an expression of sheer determination.

The light in the arc deepened to the blue-black of the night sky. Pinpricks of light, like stars, snapped into focus in the field of blue. The beam from the Cube intensified. The sky colored field rippled and expanded and lightened into swirls of red and plum. Peggy clamped her hands on the sides of her head, trying to block out the inhuman screech that filled the room.

“Shut it down!” She didn’t wait for the thing that stepped out of the field of light to come more than a few feet into the space.

She existed in the reality of the seconds it took for her hand to go to the holster at her hip. To raise her arm. To squeeze the trigger. To squeeze it again and again until the creature dropped.

Howard was standing frozen beside the Cube’s mount. If she could see his eyes behind the dark colored lenses he wore to protect them, she imagined they would be wide as saucers.

“Shut it down!” she screeched as she clicked the release for the now empty magazine and slid the fresh one from her belt into place. She heard heavy footfalls of booted tactical agents on the stairs between the shots that she squeezed off at the next monster to step through the light of the arc. “Cover it!”

Gabriel took her place and took aim, waiting for the next.

Peggy ran to the opposite end of the room, toward the pulsing, expanding field of light—looking like the lights over the snow in the north of Europe—and slid like she was diving for home base under the swinging arm of the next monster before it fell. She holstered her weapon searched for a plug, a wire to pull, and found none.

Just like Howard had planned.

It was a completely self-sustaining system.

The ropes of wire ran from the Cube to the arc and back.

So she did the only reasonable thing she could think of: Peggy hefted the bundle of wire under her arm, planted her feet against the base of the arc and _pulled_.

It was as if time was slowing down around her. Jones and two other agents were firing at creatures that stepped through the light. Howard was frantically forcing levers and dials. Assistants cowered close to the wall, shielding their eyes from the brightness of the Cube’s energy.

Peggy adjusted her grip and pulled again, leaning the weight of her body back, trying to keep tension in the line, willing the thick cables to break free.

And they did.

She could feel herself falling toward the floor, her footing lost with the abrupt dislodging of the wires. The field of light in the arc expanded for a second and began to collapse. Tendrils of energy reached out as if desperate to hold on to the structure that had supported them.

It felt as though the inside of her had suddenly become very cold while her skin burned with fever. Every hair on her body stood up, rising like the quickest, most painful case of gooseflesh. She felt the force of the scream tear from her throat but could not hear the sound of it. Everything in her field of vision became white and hot and bright. Her body slammed down into a solid surface. Pain shot through her skull as it hit the ground. Her teeth slammed together.

The world went black.

***

“Captain! Captain, please!” Steve ignored the calls for his attention, the smooth English voice rising with frantic pitch. “Captain Rogers, stop!”

“Ma’am, I don’t—“

“Captain Rogers, please, just _listen_ to me.” She sucked in breath, winded from chasing him down the stairs to the lobby. “I’ve investigated this… anomaly myself. No one is trying to fool you!” She was impossibly fresh-faced, even with her brow furrowed in frustration.

“Ma’am, I—“

“Doctor Simmons.”

“Dr. Simmons, I really would just like to go home.”

“But you—“

“Please.” He could barely keep the grief out of his voice. He turned away, pushing through the doors and drawing shaky breath as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

He spent the evening reading and rereading the personnel files he’d been given, finding solace in the fact that his anger was justified. Agent Margaret Carter’s status was listed as deceased, an unfortunate accident involving some undisclosed device Howard Stark had been working on. It was listed as an electrocution. His stomach turned over. He climbed through the window out onto the fire escape. His tiny apartment felt like a cage, his chest tightened like he was about to have an asthma attack. He needed air.

Why were they doing this? Why the elaborate hoax? There was no reason for it.

Could he be wrong?

***

Peggy felt cool air blowing against her skin. The chatter of insects and rustle of leaves filled the air. She opened her eyes to near darkness, tiny pinpricks of light overhead, like stars, dimly illuminating her surroundings.

She sat up slowly, her head swimming slightly, and looked around herself. How did she get outside?

Everything was quiet, entirely too quiet. Where was everyone? Howard? Gabriel?

What were those _things_ that had come through the field of energy from the Cube? Where were they?

She got to her feet slowly and turned around, taking inventory of where she appeared to be.

Camp Leigh, she was sure.

But the grass was too tall. The vegetation surrounding everything too thick. The yard lights were off. She was standing on a large concrete footprint.

Where was the science building?

Peggy reached for her gun as she turned around again, listening to the comforting click as she cocked it and rested her finger against the trigger guard. She moved slowly toward the building that to the rest of the world looked like a munitions bunker. The packed-down earth path to the doors seemed off. Grown over. There was a large lock on the doors.

What was going on?

Against her better judgment, Peggy took aim at the lock and fired.

The lights appeared to work again, new bulbs in the fixtures. The office was deserted. Errant papers and empty file folders littered floors, desks and shelves. She swiped her finger across one of the desks, making a deep track in the collected dust. She went through to the records room, taking note of the absence of shattered glass from the lights having exploded. Movement on the far side of the room caught her eye, a cobweb caught on a breeze where logic said there shouldn’t be one. She leaned close to the space between two shelves that should have been bolted to solid concrete wall. Air. She holstered her weapon and wormed her fingers into the space, tugging and pushing to no avail. The track that the shelving seemed to be on groaned and screeched as it budged an inch. She peered into the space, too dark beyond to see what was there.

It wasn’t right.

Every instinct she had told her to get out.

She walked for hours on the side of the road, both familiar and not, before she came to any sort of civilization. She’d looped around and doubled back, hoping to find a vehicle she could commandeer. The signs near the road proclaimed the area was a “park and ride.” There were few cars in the lot, none looking like anything she had seen before. The main building seemed to be a handful of automats, a fuel station, and a waiting area for public transportation. She smoothed her hair and steeled her nerves as she walked toward the bus stop. A lone figure sat on the bench under the hospital-bright lights. She casually untucked her blouse to conceal her holster.

In place of a window with a cashier, there seemed to be an electronic ticketing machine. The screen, like a television, changed when she touched it. The date and time in the corner said it was the second of May.

_In the year two-thousand-eleven._

Peggy took a deep breath, her mind and heart racing.

She was going to find Howard.

And sock him square in the jaw.

She tried to follow the instructions on the screen, asking her what zone she was traveling through. She didn’t know. Why couldn’t she just speak to a person in a window?

She nearly jumped out of her skin when the person on the bench spoke, “Child, are you okay?”

“Excuse me?”

“I asked if you were alright. You look a mess. Did somethin’ happen?”

“I…I…” She raked her fingers through her hair and wrung her hands together. “I’m not sure where I am.”

“Honey, you’re in New Jersey.” The older woman rattled off the name of the facility, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“What’s the nearest town?” She named it.

The information wasn’t particularly helpful. It didn’t tell her where anyone had gone or what had happened or why she appeared to have traveled sixty-four years through time. _Or how many bloody zones it was from there to New York._

“Child, what in Heaven’s name is wrong?”

Peggy slipped further into character. It was just a mission. To find her way home. She felt her face grow hot and her eyes fill with tears. “I don’t know how to get back home! He kicked me out of the car and…and I’ve been walking and I’m just so tired!”

The woman rose from her seat and ambled closer, “You come here, now.” She yanked Peggy down, cooing comfortingly and patting her head. “We’ll get you home, sweetheart. You just calm yourself down and we’ll get you home.”

Peggy let herself sob, the act oddly soothing. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to—“

“Nonsense, where you tryin’ to go?”

“New York.”

“Now, that’s a drive! You’re a long way off. Where are you comin’ from?”

Peggy thought quickly, trying to think of some spot that might be reasonable to offer as an answer. “We were driving back from visiting his mother in Delaware. We had an argument and he pulled over and made me get out of the car.” It occurred to her that a bus ticket was going to cost money, money that she didn’t have. “All of my things were in the car.”

The woman frowned, the expression etched deep on her face. “That is just terrible.” She cupped Peggy’s face in her hand, her palm cool and papery against Peggy’s clammy cheek. “We’re gonna get you home, honey, don’t you worry.” She shooed Peggy to the side and poked at buttons on the screen until it prompted her to insert money. Peggy’s eyes widened at the price of the ticket.

“Oh, no, ma’am, please, I couldn’t ask you to—“

“The name’s Celia, and yes, you _can_.” She opened her wallet and pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill. The note looked strange—the portrait of Jackson too large, the colors not right. “God says to help thy fellow man.”

“But I have nothing—I can’t repay you.”

“You can repay me by kickin’ that louse to the curb when you get back to the city. No man can call himself a man if he’s willin’ to do that to his woman.”

Peggy drew in a shaky breath, “Thank you.” The woman pressed the freshly printed ticket into her hand just as the bus pulled up to the stop.

Celia spoke in soft tones to the driver, who glanced in his mirror at Peggy with a pitiful expression, before sitting down. “Now, you’re gonna stay on this bus all the way to Lakewood. That’ll take about forty-five minutes. My stop is before that, so the gentleman is gonna let you know where to go from there.” Peggy thanked her, overwhelmed by the kindness of this complete stranger. When the buss pulled up to Celia’s stop, Peggy thanked her again. “You remember what I said now, honey. No one should be treatin’ you that way. You get home safe now, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She felt overwhelmingly guilty for her lies.

When she reached the appropriate stop, the driver swiveled in his seat to call out to her. She spent another few minutes waiting before the next bus arrived. An accident on the way made the ride to New York nearly two hours. The sun rose while they idled on the highway.

The world was strange.

Peggy made her way through the city on foot toward the New York Bell Company. She thought that if she could make contact with SHIELD or the SSR—if they even existed in this…reality—that she could figure out what had happened.

***

An unidentified woman was arrested in the early hours of the morning on May sixth. She was found to be carrying a concealed weapon by officers on the E train line. Unable to produce a license for the firearm, which appeared to be antique according to witnesses, or any form of identification, the officers attempted to arrest her. Security footage and amateur cell-phone videos show the woman resisting arrest, knocking one of the officers unconscious before attempting to flee. She is being held at Bellevue Hospital under a seventy-two hour psychiatric hold while police attempt to identify her. An undisclosed source from the hospital says that an initial search of fingerprint records have produced no results. The woman seemed to be from outside of the country, so the search for identification has been expanded to the federal level.

***

Peggy sighed in frustration when they asked her the same questions for what felt like the thousandth time. “My name is Margaret Carter. I am an agent with Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics—SHIELD—formerly of the Strategic Scientific Reserve and the British Royal Forces.”

At least they were no longer restraining her completely to the bed. The cuff on her wrist provided some slack, but she couldn’t get up and move around freely.

The federal officer pursed her lips and bounced her foot up and down where it hung from her crossed leg. “That’s all fine and dandy, but you need to let us know who you really are. I’ll admit, the resemblance is uncanny, even if the photos are old. Got the haircut perfect. And we’re still trying to figure out the fingerprints. They hit to Carter’s military records. But, you see, those records? They’re from World War Two. And quite honestly, I don’t think you look like you’re in your nineties, miss.” She uncrossed her legs and then crossed them again in the opposite direction. Peggy rolled her eyes. “Smart, stealing a dead woman’s identity. No one to call up the bank and report it when they start getting strange credit card charges or get rejected for a loan. Stupid using someone you can look up in any high school history book.”

She was in history books?

“Agent Prentiss.” A new face appeared in the doorway, stern with her dark hair pulled back into a very proper bun. The woman who’d been questioning her rose from her seat and extended a hand. The new woman shook it.

“Agent Hill. I don’t think we called you people in on this one. You’ve got your hands full right now, it seems, with those costumed people destroying a good section of Midtown?”

“We’ve got it covered. Clean up’s being organized. Everything will be as good as new by the end of the year.”

“Sounds good. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”

“Taking her in.” Agent Hill jerked her chin in Peggy’s direction. Agent Prentiss glanced at Peggy, frowning, and then slipped out of the room with Agent Hill following. Peggy strained, in vain, to hear what was being said. The two women had retreated too far down the hall. The ward she was being held in was far too noisy.

Before she knew it, she was being led to a sleek black vehicle and loaded into the back seat.

***

Steve found himself disturbed but unsurprised to find Agent Romanov sitting beside him on the fire escape when he opened his eyes. He’d dosed off at some point, emotionally drained. The sun was a ball of fire in the sky as it rose slowly above the buildings that made up his neighborhood.

“Did you break in or did you have a key?” The latter wouldn’t have been unreasonable. SHEILD had put him up in the apartment.

“Climbed up. You weren’t answering the buzzer. Came around back to see if there was a service entrance, looked up and noticed you. Got a little concerned when I called up and you ignored me.”

Steve huffed out a laugh, “Along came a spider and sat down beside ‘im.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re frightened away.” Romanov raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. It was odd to see her this way. Not just the fact that she’d appeared practically out of thin air, but her casual dress. Jeans and running shoes and a lightweight blouse.

“I think I fucked up.” Her eyebrows shot into her hairline at his choice of words. He’d no intention of offending her, but he was done with trying to be the _Aww, shucks_ Good Old Boy that everyone seemed to think he was.

“Yup.”

“It’s really her, isn’t it?”

“Looks like it.”

“I want to say _but that’s impossible_. Everything that’s happened to me since last month should be impossible. Hell, everything that’s happened to me since nineteen-forty-three should be impossible. I should be dead but I just finished fighting an army from outer space.”

“True.”

“So how?”

“Not my field of expertise, Rogers. But there’s a very flustered scientist back at HQ who wants to try to explain it all to you.”

“Dr. Simmons.”

“That would be the one.”

“I was pretty rude to her. You really think she wants to talk to me?”

Romanov nodded and settled back against the brick to finish watching the sun come up.

***

Peggy had been moved from the city’s psych ward to the quarantine unit of an organization that claimed to be SHIELD. At least they’d given her something like actual clothing here rather than a drafty hospital gown, even if the particular shade of orangey-red was completely unflattering and the fabric was _particularly_ itchy. She wondered, in brief amusement, if this was a new method of torture they’d concocted?

“I haven’t got any contagious diseases. I haven’t got any diseases at all. I’m quite healthy!” She rapped against the mirror on the far wall with her knuckles, sure that someone was watching from the other side. “It would be quite nice if someone listened to me!” She slapped her palm hard against the glass. “Dammit!” Cooperating was working just as well as resisting had.

The door to her room slid open with a hiss of air. An attractive young woman in a lab coat and high ponytail came into the room, a young man in similar fashion pushing in behind her with a cart. The young woman’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a shocked _O_. “Bloody hell.”

“I am not ill. None of this is necessary.”

“You’re… You’re… You’re really her, aren’t you?”

“I am really who?”

“Director Carter, of course.”

Director? That had a lovely ring to it.

“Yes, like I have been saying since I got here, my name is Peggy Carter. I am an agent of SHIELD. Formerly—“

“The Strategic Scientific Reserve. Advisor on behalf of the British Royal Forces. Liaison to the Howling Commandos. Direct administrative and field contact to Captain Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America. Founder of SHIELD and bane of HYDRA.” The girl looked like she was about to vibrate right out of her skin. “It is truly and honor, ma’am.”

Peggy suppressed a laugh; “Nice to know someone around here has their head on straight.”

The young woman, who finally introduced herself as Doctor Jemma Simmons and her partner as Doctor Leo Fitz, chattered amiably while she worked. Peggy imagined if this was how Steve had felt, being poked and prodded at that day that everything began—non-human, an experiment to be pulled apart.

“Well, you know, I’m primarily bio-chemistry, but I’ve got a few doctorates. Fitz is engineering, but we’ve been partnered in some way or another since… well since _forever_ , and with experimental non-lethal weaponry a very real thing, our work often collides.” Fitz circled her with some kind of electronic device, taking readings that appeared on the screen of the odd typewriting thing he called a _laptop_ sitting on the cart. Simmons drew a dozen small vials of blood and plucked hairs from her head and prodded at the inside of her mouth with a cotton swab that she sealed up inside an attached tube. “It’s not as if we can really make some sort of a genetic match to confirm your identity with any of this, but it’ll be able to help us determine if there’s anything terribly suspect. I’m not clear on the details but I know this whole debacle has something to do with that Tesseract thing that Thor took back to Asgard with his homicidal baby brother.” She giggled nervously, “Who knew Norse mythology was a real thing? Next thing you know we’ll have Poseidon raising out of the sea and wagging his finger at us all for over-fishing and pollution!” She turned to ask Fitz if he’d gotten all he needed for the moment. He nodded, quiet and contemplative for the most part. “Captain Rogers will be so happy to know your back, once we’ve confirmed everything of course and—“

“What did you say?”

“Captain Rogers will be happy.”

“Captain Rogers is dead. He crashed an enemy aircraft and was lost at sea.”

“They haven’t told you anything?”

In the few days she had been scouring the city for a contact before the local police took her in, she had seen and heard a great deal of surprising and terrifying things. She’d sat in a diner where she’d drank a cup of perfectly terrible coffee and watched the live-coverage news report on the television as monsters that looked like the creatures she’d shot at in the basement of the science building attacked the city and people in colorful costumes fought them off. There had been a man the report had called _Captain America_ in the bunch. She simply assumed that the character had simply been continued to be used in some way. She’d been angry and insulted on Steve’s behalf. The Captain was so much more than a character for someone to simply play.

Peggy shook her head.

“At the end of April. Some Russian oil company found the wreckage entirely by chance. By some miracle, Captain Rogers is alive. Haven’t you seen the papers or the telly at all?”

The next weeks were filled with visits from the pair of scientists and Agent Hill. The agent explained what Simmons had mentioned leaving some details understandably vague. They were keeping her in quarantine evidently for her own safety and to ensure no further cosmic complications were going to arise. Finally, a man with an eye-patch came to speak to her. He claimed to be the director of the agency. “I guess this creates a little conflict, doesn’t it?”

Peggy sat back against the head of her bed. “You seem to be handling things quite well. I shan’t try to seize power. I never wanted it in the first place. No one ever called me _director_. The operation was very purposefully a team effort.”

“You were pretty clearly the leader, though.”

She considered it for a moment. Titles and position had never meant much to her. It wasn’t relevant to getting the job done in the best way possible to the benefit of the greater good. “I suppose, yes.”

“Would you like to hear everything at once or a little at a time, then?”

“All at once, please. I don’t really think that I can stand much more of this.”

The one-eyed man, who’s name was very fittingly Fury, filled her in on what had happened to her loved ones since the accident with the Cube. Somehow, she really had been sucked into the future. While it had been mere seconds for her, almost seventy years had gone by for everyone else. Howard had married and had a son and been killed with his wife in a car wreck. Jarvis had passed as well as Phillips. The Howlers had all moved on and either remained in the field as long as they were physically able or had retired to have families—among them Gabriel, who’s grandson was now preparing to become an agent himself.

SHIELD had grown exponentially. The SSR and all of its holdings and resources had been absorbed into the agency. They now had a full-blown training academy for tactical agents and scientists from all walks. It had become everything that Peggy had dreamed of.

And Steve was somehow alive. “So, all that time, he was—“

“Frozen. Preserved. A bit like a bear hibernating for the winter, actually. Asleep rather than dead. Warmed him up and’ve been trying to get him back into the world.”

“Have… have you told him yet? That I’m here.”

“Not yet. We didn’t get off on the best foot with him. I think a _seeing is believing_ approach might be best. I’m not sure if he’d really take us seriously without solid proof right off the bat.” He explained that there had been a fake recovery room and a girl in costume and that Steve had promptly escaped and taken off. Peggy couldn’t help but think the whole thing had been exceptionally cruel. “If you’re ready for it, we can bring him in today.”

***

Steve found himself in a laboratory with Simmons and her engineer partner. Simmons had explained all of the ways she’d evaluated the woman who claimed to be Peggy and had determined that it was indeed her and there didn’t appear to be any problems beyond the fact that she’d somehow found her way to the future and had some serious healing to do with blistered feet. The young man very determinedly explained what he thought had happened. “You see, mathematically, a Tesseract is a four-dimensional figure—but we can’t perceive the fourth dimension. It’s as if you tried to describe our world to…to…to a cartoon, someone who existed as a flat figure. We know that the Tesseract can be used to open portals into other worlds, but that doesn’t quite satisfy the explanation of a fourth dimension.”

“Fitz, get on with it, get to the good part.”

He frowned briefly at Simmons and continued. He pulled up images and projected them out onto the holographic work surface as he spoke. “We know that the Tesseract has been used before. Howard Stark tried to create a self-sustaining energy system with it back in the forties. But there was some kind of accident and the project was shut down. They’d been classified as oh-eight-fours,” he swiped across the screen of his tablet and handed it to Steve. It displayed a grainy black-and-white photograph of what looked like one of the Chitauri aliens they’d just fought on an operating table, pretty obviously dead. “But now, we know what they are.”

“What does this have to do with a fourth dimension? It just means that Stark made a portal like Selvig did.”

“Well, Captain,” Simmons spoke softly from the other side of the hologram. It appeared to be a model of two portals firing at the same time. “The records say that Agent Carter died, but that’s not really entirely true. She was touched by the energy that the Tesseract gave off, yes, but it wasn’t just an electrocution. She…disappeared. Into thin air. They classified her as deceased because… well, because they had no other way to explain what had happened.”

Steve’s chest tightened, remembering the sight of the Red Skull as the Tesseract’s energy consumed him and he simply dissipated into the air. It had seemed like the night sky was opening and swallowing the bits of him up.

Fitz continued. “So what if the fourth dimension wasn’t just additional _space_ , but the continuity of space and _time_. Together. Carter’s accident happened on May first, nineteen-forty-seven, at twenty-three hundred hours. The crazy space Viking showed up in Selvig’s portal at precisely the same time and date… just… sixty-four years later. Time… time is real. We can measure it in the growth and decay of organisms or elements and the rotations of the…the…celestial bodies, it’s a solid thing we can perceive the _process_ of. But the _measurement_ of time, well, that’s an entirely human construct. It’s arbitrary. We very well could have called a minute and hour and a year a day—and quite frankly, there’s an increasing amount of things out there that we just simply do not understand—so why can’t the action of identical instances at separate but identical points on our constructed timeline, result in…in…a limited time-travel phenomena?” Fitz paused and moved back and forth through the digitized footage of the Tesseract portal that Selvig had built for SHIELD and the animated recreation of the portal that had “killed” Peggy. “Perhaps…perhaps our portal collapsed, not because it was unstable but because their portal was compromised?”

It was a lot.

Steve wasn’t stupid.

He was just overwhelmed.

And ashamed and guilty and sick over what his initial reaction had been.

He turned to Agent Hill, sitting on the other side of the room. “Can I see her? If she wants to see me?”

He wasn’t led down to quarantine that time. She was sitting in a conference room. Her hair pulled back in that same braid, but wearing what looked like the same dark-colored clothing that agents wore during daily operations rather than scrubs. She stood when he walked into the room and allowed herself to be pulled into his arms.

“You’re shaking.”

Steve laughed in a rush of nervous energy and held her tighter.

***

Peggy felt on edge.

SHIELD had helped her find housing, very purposefully placing herself in Manhattan rather than across the river. She was being brought up to speed, slowly, by Agents Hill and Romanov—wary at first of the latter considering her past experiences. She wanted nothing more than to be back in the field, doing her job. That’s what she’d fought for from the moment she stepped in through the doors of the Bell Company in 1945. She wasn’t about to let some ridiculous complication stop her.

But here she was on a Saturday evening, sitting across from Steve in a café that was full of people typing on laptops and tablets after having sat through an awkward dinner. She could see it in his eyes, the same hurt and longing she felt when she was losing him. The same helplessness.

For Steve, very little time had passed. Months? Everything was still fresh and raw for him.

For Peggy. It had been years. She’d moved on. She’d had to; they all did.

They walked without purpose, Steve hanging on to Peggy’s words as she told him about Zodiac and her flight across the country to make SHIELD a reality. She steered him to a stop on the sidewalk. “Steve, you were dead.”

“But I’m not.”

She shook her head. “I grieved for you. I buried you.” Steve furrowed his brow in a confused expression.

“But I’m here, and so are you. We can start—“

“No, Steve.”

He turned to glance at the building they had stopped in front of. “You know, I’d been avoiding this part of town. It didn’t even occur to me that the place would be closed.”

“What?”

“It’s eight o’clock.”

Peggy felt some of her resolve crumble. “Seems we’re both a little late.”

Steve pulled her into a loose dance frame, one hand at the small of her back and the other holding hers. “Well, my ride sort of crashed. And yours… well, yours was somethin’ outta some paperback novel.”

They swayed side-to-side and moved around in a slow circle. Steve looked down at his feet more than he looked at her.

Back at SHIELD, Peggy went through the motions of training and keeping in shape that seemed to be expected of all the agents there. She let her forehead bang against her closed locker with a heavy sigh. There was so much red tape. She just wanted to go out and take care of things the way she used to. See a need, fill a need.

It didn’t help that she felt as though she was simply being humored. Or that Steve kept inviting her to come to the boxing gym he chose to train at or out to dinner or lunch or a walk through the park.

“Agent Carter? Is everything alright?”

Peggy turned to look at the speaker. Agent Romanov sat down on the bench to untie her shoes. “Everything is fine.”

“That’s not the expression most people make when everything is fine.”

Peggy laughed. “Well, I’ve just arrived in the future where everything costs five times what it should and my dead beau is walking around like I’m being haunted.” Romanov raised a brow. Peggy felt in her gut that this was a person she could trust with secrets. Whether that was in spite of or because of who and what Romanov was, was up for debate. She sat down heavily on the bench and swiped her arm across her sweaty forehead. “I cannot even begin to articulate my happiness that he’s alive and well. But I find myself almost wishing he wasn’t.”

“That explains the desire to bang your head against the wall.” Her lips curled up at the corners in jest.

“For Captain Rogers, it’s only been months since the Valkyrie.” She paused and took the time to pull her feet out of her shoes to gather her thoughts. “It’s as good as if I’d been recalled to headquarters while he and the boys continued movements in the field. But, for me… for me it was two years. I had duties to attend to and a life to continue living—I loved him with everything I had in me, but he was gone. He wasn’t coming back. I’d begun to put the pieces of my heart back together. I’d begun to give some of those pieces to another.”

“But here, that was decades ago.”

“I know. Just like Steve, for me it’s still very immediate and fresh. It would be so incredibly easy to pick up where Steve and I left off. But, I almost feel as though I’m betraying what I’d started.”

Romanov had been changing into her training clothes while they spoke. She pulled her shirt over her head and tied her hair back. “Give it time. No one’s saying the two of you have to be together just because you both happen to be here now. Rogers is lonely.” She closed her locker. “But I don’t think he’s the type who’s going to keep at you if you tell him what you just told me.”

Peggy kept at it, kept requesting to be put in the field. She had that talk with Steve. He’d gotten filled up but insisted he understood and said that they’d been friends and partners before and that was more than enough for him and he was simply happy to have someone in his life with shared experience. He wouldn’t ask for anything more than Peggy was willing to give.

Finally, autumn rolled around and she was called into Director Fury’s office. “We’ve got a situation.” He looked up when someone knocked on the door and waved them in. Steve came to stand at her side. “Some hostages on a yacht down off the coast of Florida. Owner threw a party and decided it would be the perfect time to try to bring the Chitauri back down for some apocalypse nonsense. Not gonna happen, the bastard’s lost his marbles, but I thought it might be a good time to see the two of you in action, see if the stories were true.”

It never ceased to amaze Peggy that she now had a shelf full of books about herself and her friends. That there were movies and documentaries detailing their lives. That there were entire university courses dedicated to studying her own contributions to the world as part of history or women’s studies departments—that there was such a thing as a women’s studies department. The first time she found one of the books at the library she’d sent Steve a picture of the cover on the cellular phone she’d been given.

“I know, isn’t it weird?” he’d answered.

“Bit unsettling. We were only doing our jobs.”

It was even more wild to be standing in the belly of an aircraft, getting cinched into a parachute and testing the small radio in her ear, preparing to be dropped into the ocean along side Steve. The ramp lowered. Steve turned to her and grinned in his cartoonish uniform before he dove into the open air.

“Did he just jump without a goddamned chute?”

Peggy suppressed a laugh, “Yes he did.” She checked the placement of her release cord and dove after him.

“Jesus Christ did she do it too? Fury’s gonna kill us if they get hurt.” She couldn’t help but be amused at the chatter coming through on her earpiece.

“Nah, she had one. Shit can you imagine if Coulson was here to see this?”

“We’d never hear the end of it.”

Peggy landed lightly on her toes and released the chute from her pack to be carried off on the wind. Steve was crouched low behind the lifeboat to the side of the deck. He put a finger to his lips and motioned over her shoulder. Peggy pressed herself to the wall and waited for the man with the earpiece and the firearm at his hip to approach. She swung her leg out, the crunch of nose against boot sickening and satisfying.

***

A year in the field with Peggy had been a dream. He’d gotten to know her better than he ever had during their first lifetime, worked more closely with her, gotten to see her in real action right up close instead of in the midst of a larger battle. They grew into two seamless halves of a fighting team, even if the missions Fury sent them on were more housekeeping than anything else.

He’d also grown to love her more than he thought had been physically possible. Not just admiring her and wanting her and being blown away by her. There was an intimacy between them that hadn’t seemed possible in the middle of war.

They’d grown to be solid friends and partners.

Steve shrugged and shifted the basket on his arm as the pair of them strolled through Whole Foods. He never stopped being overwhelmed by the sheer size and variety of markets. “I dunno, I just think it’s time fer a change.” She narrowed her eyes at him and passed a bag of flour to be held in the crook his free arm. Sometimes they made a game of it, seeing how awkwardly they could fill his arms before some confused worker came to offer them a pushcart. The employees at this location seemed to have caught on. “New York doesn’t feel like home anymore.”

Peggy frowned and steered him down the aisle toward the massive checkout line. “What’s prompted this?”

“It’s not my city anymore. I just need a change. I been livin’ with one foot in each century. That’s not a way’da live.”

“Where will you go?”

“The main SHIELD offices are in the capitol. Thought I’d move down there, see how things go.”

It was a few weeks before Steve found a new apartment, insisting on doing it himself rather than allowing the agency to place him. He rented a van and loaded up his few belongings—a couple small boxes of neatly packed clothes, a big container filled with miscellaneous art supplies, a crate filled with books, his bedding and towels. The rest he’d donated, leaving his small dwelling well and empty. There were more than a few people at the parish he attended, irregularly as it was, who could use a good bed or a couch. Barton and Romanov bid him farewell after the last box was loaded. The younger Stark insisted again on having Steve and his things flown down, loudly and determinedly over the phone.

Peggy grinned at him from the passenger’s seat. He’d hugged her tightly and gone back up to the old apartment to walk through it once more and leave his keys on the table, expecting her to have headed for the train station. “You didn’t think I was going to allow you to drive all that way on your lonesome?”

The five-hour drive seemed to fly by.

Steve’s stomach fluttered like the first time he’d taken a dame out on a double when Peggy rested her hand on his knee, her fingers tapping out the rhythm of whatever was playing on the Big Band station on the satellite radio.

He hadn’t exactly thought things through.

They spread out his top sheet on the bare floor of the living room and ate Chinese take-away by candlelight in the powerless apartment. He hadn’t even had the candles on hand—a neighbor had noticed the two of them carrying his boxes up the stairs and had taken pity when he’d stopped by to introduce himself.

“I could get you a hotel room for the night?”

“It’s really no trouble, Steve.”

“I just can’t see ya sleepin’ on the floor after helpin’ me pack and keepin’ me company on the drive.”

“We’ve both slept under worse conditions. No mud, solid roof, full bellies, dry feet. Far from the most uncomfortable we’ve ever been.” She stretched and settled down on her side, head propped in one hand, bottle of Coke gripped in the other. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

“Yeah, I do. Although, in hindsight, I probably should have hired movers instead of giving everything away.” He stood and gathered their empty containers to put out of the way in the kitchen—not even a garbage can to his name. He looked over the empty, dim apartment and the woman stretched out on his floor looking out the curtainless window at the blue-black sky beyond and was struck by the complete insanity of the entire situation. It started out with a huff of air, a little amused sound. It turned into laughter that made his head pound and his gut feel like it was going to split.

Peggy sat up, “Steve? Are you alright?” She started to get up, her face full of concern.

He put a hand out to ward her off, the other one on his knee while he caught his breath. “I’m fine! I’m…I’m fine.”

***

They moved to the bedroom where there was carpeting to provide some buffer against the hard surface of the floor. Steve insisted she take his single pillow while he settled with a bath towel rolled under his head. She told him to stop being ridiculous when he tried to fold the comforter in half to give to her completely as a makeshift bedroll. Neither of them had dared take off their clothes in favor of Steve’s pajamas. The heat was coming up just fine but the lack of insulation from furniture or window coverings made the air uncomfortably cool.

Steve laid beside her beneath the plain blue comforter, flat on his back and very still. The little light coming in through the window highlighted those ridiculous eyelashes of his against his cheeks. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

“Steve?”

There wasn’t a chance in hell he was asleep. All the time she’d known him he slept on his stomach no matter how uneven or uncomfortable the surface.

“Yeah?”

“I…” Peggy struggled to find the right words. He kept his eyes closed, as if trying to keep from disturbing her train of thought with any movement. “I missed you.” It was inadequate, but there was nothing else to describe it. “I miss you.”

His eyes fluttered open cautiously.

“I missed you too.”

Peggy reached to touch his cheek tentatively. He clenched his jaw and flared his nostrils, holding something back.

“Peg?”

“Yes?”

“Can I kiss you?” He started running his mouth before she had a chance to respond. “I understand if you say no. I don’t want to lose you, not again. Peggy, I—“

“Steve?” His eyes searched her face, shining and moist and glimmering in the pale light. “Kiss me.”

He kissed her like a starving man, his mouth hot and his cheeks wet, calloused hands gripping the sides of her face. She pulled away, gasping for breath and imploring him to slow down.

“It’s not nineteen-forty-five. No one is shooting at us. There aren’t any officers that might need us out of the backseat of their jeep.” His cheeks grew warm under her fingers. “We don’t have to rush.”

“I just… I don’t want to lose any more time with you. Not now.”

She caught his lips in hers, savoring the bee-stung plumpness of them for a moment. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Steve wormed his way closer to her under the comforter, gathering her into his arms. She melted into the familiar warmth of him as he settled himself around her, a protective and possessive cage of solid limbs.

Peggy found herself taken back by the alternating tenderness and hunger, the way he pushed forward—demanding the attention of her mouth against his—and pulled back when he realized how eager he was. Strong arms cradled her against him, his body shifting and pulling her on top of him.

She sat up, looking down at him and tracing the lines of his jaw with her fingertips, his countenance ethereal and soft and impossible.  He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, murmuring something not quite audible and brushing his lips against her thumb. His hands moved up the outside of her thighs, following along the seam of her pants and coming to a rest on her hips. She caught the hem of her shirt and pulled it up and off, shivering at the sudden chill on her bare arms. Steve fingered the hem of her camisole reverently.

Peggy took his hands and moved them up, letting him lay them against her bosom. She rocked her hips, little sparks igniting in her at the friction in her jeans. Steve opened and closed his mouth, brow furrowed in distress. “Peg, we don’t… you don’t…”

“I want to. Unless you don’t, of course.” She wanted to regain some semblance of control and direction in her life—something completely apart from SHIELD and her duties. She wanted to feel connected to someone again, to feel needed and wanted. She wanted to move on. She wanted Steve.

It occurred to her, as Steve tentatively slipped his hands, warm and callused, up under her camisole that this was not the solution to those wants. Looking down at him in the silvery light, seeing the need written plainly over his features, feeling the slight tremble of his hands on her belly—if it wasn’t a sufficient solution then she would figure out how to make it work. _They_ would figure out how to make it work.

If she’d been a more romantic person—certainly sentimental, but not entirely romantic—Peggy might have called it fate. Both of them finding themselves in this odd new world that was both everything and nothing that they’d ever hoped for. Embarking, even if not entirely together, on this new start to life in a new city, making a new home.

“I want to, believe me I want to.”

He shifted under her, bucking his hips up to adjust his position on the floor. She let her head fall back, luxuriating in the sharp sensation of the button on his fly against her crotch and the sparks it sent up her spine and down into her toes. She rocked against him, feeling the beginnings of his arousal beneath her. She put her hands over his, her fingers cold in comparison. He slipped his arms around her, smoothing across her back and pulling her down. She continued to rock her hips as he kissed her.

His lips moved across her mouth and over her jaw and made a slick trail up to her ear. His teeth grazed gently over the shell of her ear. She slipped her hands under his shoulders, flattening her body against him, soaking in his warmth and solidity.

“Oh God, Peg.” He whispered against her hair, burying his face in it. He moved his hips in tandem with hers, rubbing himself against her, his erection becoming more obvious. She wiggled a hand between their bodies to pop open his button, pushing down the zipper with her knuckles. His embrace loosened, his mouth working back toward hers in lazy movements that left her ear and cheek sticky and chilly in the cool air of the empty room. She slipped her hand under the waist of his shorts and wrapped her fingers around his cock. She teased, stroking her fingertips up and down and around, running her thumb around the edge of his crown and across the slit. He tensed beneath her, groaning openly. He laid his head back against the floor, head tipped back and throat bared, open-mouthed. His fingers pressed into her skin. “ _Fuck._ ”

Peggy laid sweet kisses against his throat, tracing the taut tendons and chasing the throbbing pulse. She stopped her teasing, pressing her palm into his belly, the muscles their fluttering, tightening and releasing.

“Peg,” he croaked.

He was stroking his broad, rough hands up and down her back and sides, murmuring wordlessly, his body moving minutely under her. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut when she peeled herself away. If she’d ever seen him with a drunken smile, she imagined it would look something like the one painted across his face as he ran his hands back through his hair and dropped them on the floor above his head.

He turned his head in her direction, peeking at her over the rise of his bicep. “Hey there.”

She bit her lip and laughed as she wiggled out of her pants. “Hey there, yourself.”

He propped himself up on his elbows, “You are one beautiful dame, you know that?”

Peggy scrunched her face, “Thought I was an agent, not a dame.”

He chuckled, “Yer both. Very much both.” He shifted his weight and tucked her hair behind her ear. His fingers ran down over her cheek, brushing against her lips. “Y’sure?”

She nodded and drew herself up onto her knees to pull her camisole up over her head. She hesitated, blushing at her own sudden insecurity at baring herself for him. It wasn’t as if they were new to this. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been with anyone else. It was foolish, but it felt like the first time. Their first romance had been so fast and physical, like whiplash. In the year since she’d _arrived_ , they’d gotten to know each other again. Slowly, more completely. It was an entirely new foundation, an entirely new relationship.

“Ya don’t look sure.”

She exhaled slowly and reached behind herself to undo the catch on her bra. “I’m sure.” She shrugged off the straps and cast the garment to the side. She fought the urge to cover herself as gooseflesh covered her skin and her nipples hardened.

Perceptive, he sat up and stripped out of his own shirt, a brow raised cockily. He wiggled out of his pants and shorts and knelt there in front of her, bare and glorious in the moonlight. His hands came up to cup her skull, thumbs rubbing comforting circles against her jaw while he kissed her, his erection bumping against her belly when he drew himself up close.

Steve’s hands flowed down over her shoulders, their fingers lacing together briefly before they moved around to grasp her behind, slipping down into her panties. She sighed as he kneaded her flesh. “Making bread?”  He laughed into the crook of her neck and drew a hand back, moving it between their bodies, slipping his fingers around the cotton gusset and sinking one slowly inside of her. “Steve, oh!” He pressed his finger forward, crooking it back and forth and pressing into springy muscle so that she felt it in her gut. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging his shoulders and resting her head against them. He slipped one digit out and slowly eased it back in alongside a second. He sucked her earlobe into his mouth, biting down softly. His thumb slipped side to side over her clitoris in the increasing moisture between her legs, spread around by his moving hand. Peggy whined, suddenly over-sensitive by the persistent stimulation with no forward drive toward climax. “Steve, St—Steve, stop.”

He slowed and stopped, easing his hand away. His mouth continued over her ear. He dragged sticky fingers up the length of her thigh and hooked them into her waistband. “Off?”

“Yes,” she said, breathy and high. She laughed soundlessly when he gave her buttock a final, playful squeeze and pushed the underwear down, rolling the elastic down over her hips and thighs to her knees.

And just like that he was gone, back down on the floor, propped up on his elbows. Peggy shivered at the sudden loss of his warmth and sat down to remove her underwear the rest of the way. She swung her leg over him, straddling his abdomen and leaning down to kiss him, her hair falling in a curtain and blocking out the little light from the window. He rubbed at her arms, warding off her goosebumps. “God, Peg… I want you. So bad. I missed y’so bad.”

She kissed all around his face, pursing her lips tight and pecking across his mouth and cheeks and forehead and finishing at the tip of his nose and making him chuckle. “You have me.” She kissed him more seriously, “I’ve got you.” She moved back, reaching down between her legs to grasp his length. She stroked, drawing lazily pleased sounds from his throat, and held him while she sank down.

Her breath came in heavy pants while she seated herself. A thought occurred to her while she settled into the assault on her senses, trying to focus on Steve’s hand as it moved up her belly and traced a path across a breast: being with someone you loved, someone who had settled into your bones and muscles and blood, had an entirely different feeling of fullness than just fucking someone. The physical, of course. There was always, undeniably that. But this fullness, both of body and soul, was something precious. Something she’d only ever found with one other person. Something she never wanted to miss again.

The sharp pleasure-pain of her nipple being pinched and rolled brought her back to what was before her, out of her head. She moved her hips slowly back and forth, undulating her body, pressing herself down against Steve’s pelvis as firm as she dared, in need of contact. She threw her hands up, running them into her hair and holding into it like an anchor. She arched into Steve’s touch, his hands on her bosom soft and rough all at once. He rolled his hips up and down, flowing like a wave on the ocean beneath her, up as she rocked back. Her body tightened and shuddered, not quite the overwhelming feeling of hard-won climax. “Steve,” she croaked.

Steve pulled her down against him, holding her tight to his chest while he continued to roll his hips. Slowly. Carefully. He worked his mouth against hers, parting her lips with his tongue, probing over the ridges of her teeth and sucking her bottom lip into his, biting softly and soothing with a slick tongue. He rolled them, Peggy’s head coming to rest on that single pillow they’d argued over. Her legs tensed to hold on as they moved. She settled them around his waist, linking her ankles together loosely over his backside.

He thrust down, she arched up. Even in the pale light, the flush on his face and chest was evident, matching the warmth that spread through her, almost unnerved by his unrelenting gaze. “Harder.” She pressed her heels in. His eyes fluttered closed. He worked his hips more tightly, drawing back and pushing forward in quick bursts.

The sounds of wet skin—sex and sweat—slapping together, and their own panting and moaning echoed in the otherwise empty room. She slipped a hand between their bodies and tipped her hips forward. He dropped his face against her neck, groaning loudly and panting humid breath against her skin when she spread her fingers out, spreading her lips. His cock stroked up and down against the digits as he continued to thrust. She pressed down, feeling her the heartbeat that was hammering in her temples there as well. She stroked herself, palm against her clitoris.

Climax dropped down over her like all of the rain held in a cloud falling in a single sheet. Her toes curled, pain shooting up her calf as her muscles spasmed and locked. Her free hand scrabbled for purchase, neat nails scraping and digging at the thick muscle at the back of Steve’s shoulder. She sucked in breath like the room was running out of air.

“Peg, Peg, I—“ She moaned when he pulled out, continuing to touch herself, trying to come down slowly, clinging to the feeling of concentrated sensation. He put his weight on his forearm beside her and took himself in hand, stroking fast and carelessly, eyes screwed shut, mouth open and wet. She craned her neck upward, licking into the hot space and kissing him soundly as he spilled over her stomach, his practical wail echoing into her own mouth as he came.

Steve looked down at her, eyes lidded heavily, chest heaving. “I love you so goddamn much, Peggy.”

Peggy closed her eyes, a smile crawling across her face. She craned up to kiss him sweetly, her fingers gliding up from his shoulder to the back of his head and scratching gently through his soft hair. “I love you, darling.”

They luxuriated in the boneless warmth of afterglow, kissing and touching and murmuring affectionate nonsense. Peggy snagged the towel he’d been using to prop up his neck to clean herself up. She balled the towel up and pitched it across the room before pulling the comforter back over them. “Hey! What am I supposed to sleep on now?” She rolled her eyes and arranged the pillow for him to put his head down on before tucking herself into his side. She knew that at some point in the night, he would flop over onto his stomach. He’d curl in on himself, making himself small and hoarding his warmth. She’d mold body around him. She never minded being the “big spoon.” It was comforting, being able to hold on to what was hers without fear of it being torn away by someone or something she couldn’t control.

His arm was heavy around her, anchoring her down, the plush carpet oddly tickly against her bare skin. “How long’ve you got that van?”

“Another day, I think?”

“Tomorrow we’re buying you a bed.”

“We?”

“Mhm. If I’m going to be a regular visitor, I think my opinion should count.” He laughed, the sound vibrating through his chest against her cheek.

“I want a harder mattress. The thing I was sleepin’ on back in Brooklyn felt like I was gonna sink inna the floor. Worse'n the bedroll full'a rags when I was nineteen.” He grew quiet. His breathing steady and slow. She thought he might be drifting. “Move down here. Don’t just be a visitor.”

“No.” She craned her neck upward and pressed a kiss to the square of his jaw. “I like where I am. You’ll just have to return the visits.”

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No test! I kid, I kid.
> 
> JFK Airport in Queens, NY was built about '43 and originally called Idlewild Airport after the property it was on. The name was changed to Major General early on and then changed again to NY International and then to JFK; but until '63 everyone continued to call it Idlewild. Cross-country flights back then were awful. To get from NY to CA took more than 25 hours. Most often, you had to switch planes at least twice and make 15 or more stops between departing and your destination.
> 
> Steve and Bucky had a thing about the Grand Canyon in the comics! In _Man Out of Time #5_ , Steve sketches a picture of Bucky so he can "see" the Canyon. Peggy and Gabe Jones had a romantic relationship in the comics that Steve threw a bit of complication into by getting defrosted. Colonel Kuro Chin was a double agent for SHIELD within the fictional Yashonka military. His contact was Sharon Carter and then Captain America during the Z-Ray storyline. He was killed helping Cap escape from the country.
> 
> The 21 Club is a restaurant that you can check out in Midtown today! It was a speakeasy in Greenwich Village then moved uptown and eventually became a legitimate establishment.
> 
> At the time the early-SHIELD portion of the story takes place, Romania was occupied by/aligned with the Soviet Union. This "officially" lasted from the time of the post-War occupation through the end of the '80s. I think it's reasonable to speculate that the Red Room may have fed SHIELD false information about moving operations or expanded operations into the occupied areas to make it harder for SHIELD to take them down.
> 
> The photograph on Peggy's desk is something I thought of when I saw [this photo of Italian partisans during WWII holding American weapons.](http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5pmzdgy4f1r2y9suo1_1280.jpg) For those who are unclear on what that means, because I know I had to look it up to be sure, that means that the photo is of a group of pro-Ally Italian resistance fighters against the German occupation and Fascist regime.
> 
> If I remember correctly from CATWS, the camp Steve trained at that later became SHIELD was meant to be in NJ. The facility obviously doesn't actually exist, so I substituted in Fort Dix, which was then, and still is an Army training facility. That's how I arrived at the approximate cost of Peggy's bus ticket. Using the inflation calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I figured that the ticket cost would have been astronomical to Peg as the $21.40 from Ft. Dix to NYC has the same buying power as over $200 in the present-day Avengers setting. In the city, Peggy is found on the subway, the E train runs from the approximate location of the SSR office to the approximate location of the Griffith.
> 
> Yes, I absolutely stole the FBI agent's name from _Criminal Minds_. I didn't think Emily would mind.
> 
> Unfortunately, [the Stork no longer exists.](http://spoonercentral.com/sylvanspoon/Club.jpg) The address it had moved to at the time Steve and Peggy made their date is now occupied by [a small public park/seating area](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paley_Park#/media/File:Paley_Park.JPG) and some retail space. Quite sad, but the park looks lovely at night so it's still a pretty setting for their dance.


	11. Challenge Twenty-One: Lazy Morning Sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new school year brings new challenges to the Carter-Rogers household. With their daughter beginning Kindergarten and their son a newly minted teenager looking forward to high school, Steve and Peggy relish the moments they find to be together alone. They've grown comfortable in their life together: Peggy claiming a top leadership role with SHIELD and taking over the New York field office that once housed the SSR; Steve flourishing in his job in illustration and taking like a fish to water in his role as a mostly stay-at-home father. Odd for 1960, but it works for them. New challenges seem like nothing that the two of them can't handle together.
> 
> But when that new school year brings back old enemies along with new friends, their comfort is quickly stripped away. Steve never thought a family was in the cards for him before he met Peggy--but that new possibility didn't also equate to the safety and security that a family offers. Instead, it put them more at risk than they ever were before with nothing valuable to lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains medical inaccuracy in relation to survival of a serious wound. Just suspend a little disbelief with me for the sake of the story, we are dealing with super soldiers, after all. Also gross inaccuracies in police investigative processes.
> 
>  **TRIGGER WARNING:** Main plot involves child abduction. Proceed with caution.

_Steve stood behind her. She gripped the edge of the couch cushion and pressed her feet down hard into the floor. She felt as though she needed to hold on let she float away or shatter into a million tiny pieces. Her husband’s grip on her shoulders tightened, forgetful of his strength in his distress. She’d have ten neat little bruises before the night was out, but the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the anguish she felt._

_Peggy turned to Barnes, holding his sister close on the other end of the couch. “Where is my son?”_

_“You sent him up to bed an hour ago, remember?”_

_“Get him. Please.” She sucked in air like it was going to run out and gripped Steve’s wrist. Bucky eased his arms from around Rebecca and went off to retrieve James from his room._

_“We’ve got every officer in the city searching, Director Carter. We’ll find her.” The officer sitting on the couch opposite theirs looked terrified when he glanced up at Steve. “Captain Rogers, we… we’re doing everything we can.”_

_Steve spoke for the first time since the officers arrived at their home that afternoon. “It’s not enough.”_

***

Peggy held her daughter’s hand as they skipped over cracks in the sidewalk. The October sun was bright and warm. “What did you learn at school today, my darling?”

“I learned to spell cap. C-A-P. But I knew that already because that’s what Uncle Howard calls Papa.”

“My clever girl.” Another birthday and a few months of school had dragged all of the babyish mispronunciations out of her speech. Lilly often paused and very purposefully placed her tongue against the back of her teeth or the roof of her mouth. Her letters still wobbled and tilted when she wrote, though it was less and less with each day of school. At least it was only kindergarten. She’d be in a proper uniform jumper next year. Peggy dreaded the thought of how grown up her little girl would look; she remembered the change in James when he went through the same transition.

The time had also brought Philips’ retirement and Peggy’s official promotion, though she’d been director in all but name for quite some time.

“We got a new teacher today.”

“You did?”

“Mhm.” Lilly told her mother about how the new teacher had said she was filling in while Ms Bogart was ill. “My new teacher is very nice. She sat on the floor with us and sang songs and she tied my shoe. Ms Bogart doesn’t do those things.” Lilly stuck her foot out to show off the neat bow on her black and white saddle shoe.

“What’s your new teacher’s name?”

Lilly pursed her lips and tapped her chin as they stepped onto the elevator. “Miss…Miss…Miss Wood.” She protested when Peggy reached out to tap the button for the floor they were headed to and then pushed it herself. “I remembered because her name’s what you say Uncle James’s head is made out of.” Peggy fought back a laugh and told the child that it hadn’t been a nice thing for Peggy to say and she shouldn’t repeat it.

“How would you like to be in charge today?” The little girl’s eyes widened in delight and she nodded, practically dragging Peggy past the switchboards.

“Good afternoon, Agent Carter.”

“Hello, Rose. I trust the place didn’t fall to pieces while I was gone?”

“Not at all. Hello there Miss Lillian, I didn’t know you’d be visiting today.”

“My Papa took James away for the weekend so I get to come to work with Mama and be in charge.”

“I love your dress, is it new?”

Lilly preened and held out the hem. “My Papa made it out of a par…parma…”

“Parachute,” Peggy whispered.

“He made it out of a pear-ah-shoot.”

“It’s just too lovely, Miss Lillian.”

“What do we say?”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Steve and Peggy had kept mementos and old equipment from the War and their service. After it was all over, stores had continued to sell their large supplies of khakis and blues and silky white chute materials. There was a healthy supply of it all still in their Brooklyn basement. Steve had learned early on how to make and mend and alter his clothing to fit his frail frame and make it last as long as possible. They’d found a reliable old machine and put it down there where Steve churned out pants and jackets and plain shirts for playing in when James had been younger and simple frocks and short pants and capes for Lilly.

On James’ first day of school, he’d worn a shirt made of the material from Steve’s parachute, the one he was forever leaving behind on planes. On Lilly’s first day she’d been presented with a dress made from the remainder of the same. It had replaced her stocking and wire fairy wings as her favorite thing to wear, nearly always paired with her increasingly scuffed saddle shoes, a pair of light blue socks, and a matching ribbon in her hair.

The pack the chute had come in became a schoolbag. It officially belonged to James but was being loaned to Lilly for the time being.

Lilly hummed and skipped when the hidden elevator opened up onto the office that had been the SSR and become SHIELD’s New York headquarters. Agents glanced at her and either smiled or rolled their eyes as she passed their desks, heading for the office that had been Dooley’s in years past and was now Peggy’s.

Lilly grew antsy as the evening progressed; no longer satisfied with the stack of short books and sheets of paper and box of crayons Peggy kept in her desk. “Mama,” she whined. “I thought I was going to be in charge.”

“You are, Director Rogers. You’re sitting in the big chair, aren’t you?”

“I want to send someone on a mission.”

Peggy very seriously considered calling Thompson in to the office to let Lilly tell him he was being packed off to Antarctica. She glanced over her shoulder to see who was working late that evening. The clock on the wall said it was nearly seven; no wonder Lilly was getting irritable and bored. It was well past their usual dinnertime.

Peggy ripped a sheet of paper off of her memo pad and jotted down something down. She folded the paper carefully and placed it on the blotter in front of Lilly. “Call Agent Sousa in, I’ve thought of a very important task for him.”

Lilly slid down out of her seat and went to the doorway. She straightened herself out, smoothing her skirt and folding her hands behind her back as if at parade rest. She cleared her throat. No one seemed to notice her. She cleared her throat again, louder. Sousa looked up from the file on his desk. Lilly put a hand up and beckoned him over before turning on her heel and rushing back behind the desk to settle herself in the chair again.

“Yes?” Sousa leaned heavily against the doorframe.

Peggy motioned to the little girl at her desk, “I believe the director needs to speak with you.”

Sousa smiled and stepped into the office and up to the desk, more than happy to play along. Lilly put a very stern expression on her face and held the folded sheet of paper out to him. He took it from her and read what was written.

“You want me to go get dinner?” Peggy bit her bottom lip and gestured to the mountain of files on the side of her desk and the open one in her lap. Sousa sighed, “Alright, alright. I need to get out of here for a few minutes anyway.”

“Thank you, Daniel.” He frowned when she handed him a bill, insisting on it being his treat. “You can cover the next late night.”

They settled down in the meeting room. Peggy was glad for the quiet of the mostly empty office, disturbed only by the occasional shuffling of papers and the crinkle of the waxy deli wrappers Sousa had brought their sandwiches back in. The agent watched in mild amusement as Lillian peeled her sandwich open, eating it a layer at a time. When she was finished, she folded her wax paper up carefully, much in the same way that Steve took care to fold up the shiny paper off of a present to use for covering sketchbooks or to cut out clothes for Lilly’s paper dolls.

Lilly made herself amused, spinning slowly around in the chair, counting the slats in the blinds. Peggy watched out of the corner of her eye as the little girl brought her feet up onto the seat, as if moving slowly would keep her from being seen, and started to rise up.

“Sit _down_.”

“Maa- _mah_.” Peggy repeated herself. Lilly sat back down and smoothed out the front of her dress, brushing crumbs away. “Agent Sousa?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you walk with that cane?”

Peggy started to scold her. Daniel put up a hand, “It’s alright, I don’t mind. Probably the most polite way I’ve ever been asked, actually.” He cleared his throat and wadded up his wrapper. “I walk with this cane because I only have one leg.”

“It’s not nice to lie. You have _two_ legs.” She leaned over in her seat and pointed down into Sousa’s lap. “One. Two.” She pursed her lips in smug satisfaction.

“No, no, one of them is wooden. He bent down and lifted the hem of his pant and rapped his knuckles against the prosthetic lightly.” Lilly gasped in surprise. “I got hurt when I was in the army. It’s a little hard to walk, I get tired sometimes. So, I use the cane to make sure I don’t fall down.”

Lilly nodded knowingly, “Like my Uncle James.” She touched her left arm absentmindedly.

“Something like that, yeah.”

Peggy gathered Lilly into her arms later on, the little girl long since having fallen asleep on the couch in her office. Daniel held doors and pressed elevator buttons for her after the two of them locked up for the night. “I really am sorry. I’m going to have a talk with her in the morning. She’s been taught better.”

“Carter, it’s fine, really.” They said good night to the ladies working the overnight at the Bell Company. “Enjoy your weekend off. I’ll make sure some exciting emergency comes up you’ll have’ta be called in for!”

Peggy and Lilly spent their weekend at the library and the park and the cinema and having their hair trimmed and styled at the salon before attending a performance of _Bye, Bye, Birdie_ as guests of Ms. Angie Martinelli. It was as exhausting as it was pleasant. Peggy couldn’t help but wonder just how the boys were doing off on their own weekend together.

“Mama, that wasn’t _really_ her husband, right?” They sat in their pajamas on the floor in front of the fireplace, a small flame going to take the chill out of the crisp autumn air. They’d been out to dinner with Angie after the show, it had felt like ages since Peggy had had a chance to catch up with her friend—ages since she met Angie working as a waitress at the diner she frequented for breakfast and lunch in the early days after the War.

“No, my darling. They were only acting like they were Mr. and Mrs. MacAfee.”

She carefully spread red polish over Lilly’s fingers and toes, a treat to end the weekend with before she was sent off to bed. Steve would be home soon. As much as Peggy had enjoyed being able to spend solid time with her daughter, something she rarely got to do much of anymore, she was glad for the returning support of a second parent and an adult to talk to.

Lilly arranged her hands and feet beside Peggy’s, “We match.” Polish dry, they curled up in Lilly’s bed for a story. She frowned deeply as Peggy tucked her in for the night. “Mama? Why didn’t I get to go away with James and Papa and Uncle James?”

“Because it was something special for them, just like we had a special time together.”

“When will Papa teach me how to shoot? I want to learn like James.”

“You will learn when you’re older, if you’d still like to.” Peggy smoothed a hand over her hair and bent down to plant a kiss against her cheek.

“Will _you_ teach me?”

“If you’d like.” She smiled and stood and pulled the chain on the light beside the bed. “Now to sleep with you, school in the morning.”

***

Steve felt at ease when they finally reached the city. The ache for home and his own bed with his wife beside him made the drive through Manhattan and over the bridge and into their neighborhood seem to take triple the time it should. The weekend with Bucky and James had been great, if exhausting. Bucky had regaled James with stories of training for the Olympics, his resentment over not quite qualifying for the team that went to the Summer Games in Rome just that year barely showing.

It had taken Bucky some time to find his groove again. With his family, with his job, with everyone pushing him back into a social scene that he just didn’t want to be in any longer. He’d found that groove again when he’d discovered a young man looking to qualify for the previous games and in need of a coach. When his protégé qualified, but ultimately pulled out, Bucky had been crushed—until someone put the bee in his bonnet about trying for the Paralympics himself instead of training someone else.

“Four years, it’s gonna be you, kiddo.” Bucky’d ruffled James’ hair, grinning ear to ear as he peered through a set of binoculars at the target set on the other side of the range. James smoothed his hair, down and to the left, curls doing what they wanted either way, and settled down again with the butt of the rifle against his shoulder.

“Pop, why aren’t you teaching me?”

“Because I want you to learn from the best.”

“Aww, shucks, punk. Don’t go givin’ me a big head there now.”

“Y’already got a big head, jerk.”

They’d gone over safety and maintenance and how to breathe and how to be patient and James had whooped in delight the first time his shot had landed in the battered wooden deer that was serving as a target.

Bucky had dozed in the passenger’s seat just before they crossed into the city again. James leaned forward from the backseat as they pulled up to the building Bucky lived in. “Uncle James?” Bucky startled awake, the prosthetic sitting in his lap clattering down onto the floor. He sat up very straight and blinked rapidly, pretending he hadn’t been snoozing.

“Yes Tiny James?”

The boy frowned deeply, “We’re home.”

“Oh, well. Look’it that.” He picked the arm up off of the floor and groaned as he unfolded himself and stood up beside the car. “C’mon, you. Help an ol’man up the stairs with’at gear.” He walked around to the back of the big wagon to pull his things out of the wayback.

James sighed and rolled his eyes.

“I know ya didn’t just make an ugly face back there.”

“I hate it when he calls me that.” He folded his arms and frowned even harder than before. “I’m not _tiny_.”

The boy was on the petite side; there was no way around that. Peggy wasn’t terribly tall and Steve had been even shorter before the serum. As far as anyone knew, James and Lilly hadn’t inherited anything at all of Erskine’s enhancements. They owed their general health to Peggy’s good genes and very careful watching over. He was, at least, much more muscular than Steve had been. Even with being fairly color blind and having his own breathing troubles, he was doing alright.

“Then you act like a grownup y’keep tellin’ me y’are and ask him to stop.” He turned around in the driver’s seat. “Now go help.” Steve turned the car off and got out before Bucky had the chance to load himself up with baggage. They carried his gun cases and weekend bag up the front stairs while Bucky fished his keys out of his coat pocket. “Need us to put anything away, Buck?”

“Nah, I’ll get it in the morning. You g’on home. I’m sure yer itchin’ to get back to Peg.”

Steve waited a beat, not sure if the anxious set to James’ shoulders was because he planned on talking to Bucky about the nickname right then. When the boy stayed silent Steve sent him down to wait in the car. “You sure you’re okay?”

Bucky flopped down onto his beaten up couch. “Yeah. I’m just tired. Not lookin’ forward to work tomorrow.” He’d eventually gotten a job in the offices at the shipping company he’d worked the docks for before the War and quickly worked his way up the ladder into a management position. He still went on the odd mission for SHIELD, never quite shaking off the serviceman’s cap and never quite comfortable outside of a sniper’s nest. He did make a decent living, better than the government salary that SHIELD offered and far better than Steve ever remembered him bringing in, in the days they were roommates trying to get by. Had an okay apartment not to far from the brownstone that Steve and his family lived in, not too far away from Rebecca and her family.

“Something up over there?”

He shook his head. “If I go to work, that means the day’s gotta end and Bec’s gonna expect me for dinner.”

“What’s so bad about that? She’s a wiz in the kitchen.”

“She keeps tryin’a set me up with gals from church or bridge or single mas from the rugrats’ classes.” Steve suppressed a laugh. “Shut it, punk. I ain’t got an interest in bein’ set up. Ya’d think after the disaster last time she’d just give the hell up.” He’d taken some woman out to the pictures. A car had backfired right next to them while they were walking to the diner afterward. Bucky had panicked, gripped in a flashback, and knocked her over to protect her from the imagined mortar blast. The mortification over the whole thing was mutual. He never spoke to the woman again. Bucky’d been crushed, thinking maybe she was the answer to his hermit’s life. She’d asked questions, interested but not sickly fascinated or repulsed by his arm the way some of the other women he’d dated had been. Seemed like this time, it would work. “I don’t mind bein’ alone.”

“I know, Buck. I get it.” He raked a hand through his hair, his eyes burning with fatigue. “T’be perfectly honest? If I didn’t have Peg, if she’d said no back then or somethin’ had happened? I wouldn’t mind bein’ alone either.”

“It’s different.”

“I know. I still get it, though. That’s the point, isn’it? Nobody really gets it.” Bucky nodded and pulled Steve into a hug.

“Give Peg a smooch for me.” Steve chuckled. “And I owe Lil’ a day at Coney. I didn’t forget that.”

“See? You’d be a great dad, Buck. Y’know, there’s this teacher at James’ school—“

“Can it, punk. I’m a good _uncle._ Spoil the crap outta ‘em shove ‘em back at you two. Now get out. Yer keepin’ me from my beauty sleep.”

Steve opened the door of the brownstone as quietly as he could, “Go on, I’ll get our gear. You go up to bed. School in the morning.”

“Pah- _ahp_.” Steve pointed toward the stairs. “Please? Lemmie play hookie just this once?”

“Nope. Captain America, ‘member? Gotta follow the rules. Be a good example. No son’a mine’s gonna cut class.”

James made an exasperated sound and trudged up the stairs mumbling something that sounded very much like, “Yeah, _you_ , rules,” and then, “Good example, my scrawny ass.” Steve shook his head in amusement. If there was one thing that he could absolutely say with no doubt whatsoever that James had inherited from him, it was the smart-aleck mouth. Made him feel like a complete hypocrite every time he scolded the kid for it. He ducked outside again to gather their baggage from the wayback. Rifle and service piece went in the safe. Rucksack full of laundry that stunk of outdoors and sweat got tossed down to the basement to be dealt with at a more reasonable hour.

He climbed the stairs, emotional rather than physical exhaustion pulling at his muscles and making his head throb. His kids weren’t babies anymore. He had a teenager who was rushing toward adulthood and hated the color green. A kindergartner that acted like she was five going on fifteen when they weren’t coloring purple elephants or having a tea party in Neverland. He had a brother-in-law with a daughter who called him _Uncle Steve_ in the most unnerving way; like she knew a secret he hadn’t even told Peggy. The last time they visited he’d joked that little Sharon would make an excellent interrogator for SHIELD some day. He had a beautiful, fierce wife who made him want to wake up and live every morning. He had a job he enjoyed doing something he loved. He got to work from home and be there for his kids, nurse them through every last sniffle and surgery, read to them before bedtime, make them dinners that filled their bellies and made them warm.

It all made him feel the strongest pull of guilt. None of it was ever supposed to be in the cards for him.

He should be dead. The greatest medical minds in Brooklyn would have told you that with confidence.

If he wasn’t dead, he should have been the one living the quiet, brooding, solitary life that Bucky was carving out for himself.

Steve ducked into James’ bedroom, ready to tell him to turn his flashlight off and put the comic book away. He was flopped onto the bed diagonally, fully dressed and snoring unevenly. Steve shook his head and carefully untied James’ boots and eased them off his feet. He gathered the slender legs up in the crook of his arm and arranged the boy in what looked like was a more comfortable position. James immediately curled himself over, clutching at his pillow and burying his face in it.

He poked his head into Lillian’s room, her little body a steadily rising and falling lump under the lush, light pink comforter, toes poking out the bottom end. A light sleeper for the most part, he slipped away as quietly as he could so as to not wake her.

Finally, he made his way into the room he and Peggy shared. He sat down heavily in the seat at his drafting table to yank off his shoes and tug on his pajama pants and a clean undershirt. Peggy was asleep on top of the covers, her nightgown draped over her body reminding him of armless sculptures at the Met. She sighed and stretched and rubbed her face down into the pillows with a dreamy sigh when he rubbed her shoulder, catching the fluttery cap sleeve of the nightgown in his fingers. It was a silky, airy thing, lace and ribbons flowing down from her bust to her ankles. He’d bought it for their anniversary several years prior while he was off in Italy on some good-will mission or another. She’d rolled her eyes and grinned and told him it looked positively ridiculous but came to bed wearing it with her cheeks flushed and her hair down looking absolutely radiant.

“Hello, my darling.” She turned her face to look over her shoulder at him, creases from the pillow etched lightly into her cheek. He caught her lips in his chastely and pulled the comforter out from under her to over them both with. “I was beginning to think the three of you were going to stay an extra day.”

He pulled her close and buried his nose in her hair, breathing in the faded scent of her perfume and the sleep-induced warmth of her. “Almost did. Worried about Buck.”

“You’re always worried about Barnes.”

“Yeah, well… use’ta be his job to worry about me. Shoe’s on the other foot now.”

“Anything dire?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet at least.”

“You asked him to move in again, didn’t you?”

“No, not after how upset it made ‘im last time.”

“We can talk in the morning?”

“Yeah.” They settled down, nestled into each other’s arms, and drifted.

Steve swam up out of the muddy waters of sleep when he became vaguely aware of movement beside him and distant, distressed sounds coming from down the hall. Peggy put a hand on his shoulder to still him when he started to untangle himself from their bedding to see what the problem was. “Just see if she goes back to sleep. You can’t go running every time.”

They were answered with the slap of bare feet on hardwood floor and quiet sniffling in their doorway, “Mama?”

The little girl was rubbing her eyes and clutching at the ruffled hem of her pajama shirt, her hair a wispy, tangled mess around her head. “We’re here, darling.”

She shuffled forward and Steve sat up and put her arm out to invite her into the bed. “Papa!” Her voice broke around the word and she hoisted herself up onto the end of the bed, crawling up between Steve and Peggy when he held the covers open for her. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, mo leanbh.” He smacked a loud kiss on the top of her head and she curled in close against his chest. “Now go back to sleep.”

Steve groaned in discomfort at the feel of a very sharp little knee thrust right up into his kidney in the early hours of the morning, just before the alarm was set to go off. He turned carefully to avoid disturbing the tangle of dark and light hair peeking out over the top of the comforter that he was fairly certain had at some point been his wife and daughter. He never minded when one of the kids needed to sleep with them, but _holy moly_ was it a restless night when it was Lilly. James laid still for the most part, content with the warmth and the closeness and the security of a parent on either side of him. Lilly was altogether the opposite, luring them into a false sense of calm when she burrowed herself down under the covers against one of them and drifted off quickly only to commence with rigorous kicking and tossing and turning for the duration of the night. It was a wonder she never woke herself up. Peggy joked it was how she stayed fit, exercising in her sleep.

Peggy held Lilly close, trapping the girl in her arms in some attempt to make her be still. Those knobbly little knees were still dangerous and unchecked. She shifted and stretched, carefully freeing her arm from under Lilly’s sleeping form. “Morning.” She pressed the button on the top of the alarm clock before it had a chance to start ringing. “Ugh. Monday.”

Steve laughed softly and pushed a curl away from her forehead, “Want me to get breakfast started?”

She shook her head and pulled the comforter back, shaking Lilly’s shoulder softly to wake her. “No, you go back to sleep. I’ll get them off to school.”

He settled back down again as Peggy gathered the child into her arms, still groggy and disoriented. “Let James sleep in. I’ll drive him so he doesn’t have to rush for the train.”

“You’re such a push-over.”

“I can afford to be. Few more years at least. I’ll be boring-rule-following-Pop when he gets behind the wheel. Nine o’clock curfew. No girls in the car. No drivin’ over the bridge. Housework for gas money… And most of all, no sleepin’ in on school days.” He grinned and caught the pillow she chucked at him as she moved around the bed. Thirty minutes later, Peggy off to take Lilly to school, a string of obscenities erupted from down the hall. Steve held back his amusement and put on the sternest voice he could manage, “Watch that mouth!”

James came sliding into the doorway in socks and shorts and his uniform shirt thrown on haphazardly over his undershirt. “I swear I set my alarm! It didn’t go off! I’m sorry!” He rushed back in the direction of the bathroom. Steve eased himself out of bed pulled his pajamas off, slipping into whatever slacks and shirt were on the top of the pile in the dresser. James’ feet pounded down the hall from the bathroom to his bedroom, tie flying behind him. He emerged again, yanking his shoes on, curls still a mess, pillow marks still creasing his cheek, to steal the hairbrush from the bathroom where Steve was methodically brushing his teeth.

“Slow down, kiddo.”

“I’m sorry! It’s didn’t go off, I swear!”

“Because yer ma turned it off.”

He froze, brush stuck in the tangled mass of his curls. “Why’d she do that?” His face morphed from confusion to delight. “We playin’ hookie?”

“Nope. Just missin’ homeroom. Thought y’could use the extra few minutes of sleep. Take your time, I’ll give y’a ride.” They had a lazy breakfast of instant oatmeal, James grinning ear to ear the entire time. “You’ve got that bow and arrow thing tonight, right?”

“ _Order_ of the Arrow, Pop.”

“Right. Order. Fancy name doesn’t mean you look any less silly in the get up.” His eyes crinkled with amusement and James glared at him halfheartedly. “You’ll be gone all night?”

“Uh huh.” He patted his backpack, change of clothes and clean uniform shirt folded neatly at the bottom under his books. “I’ll be home fer dinner t’marrah. Gonna go t’school with Seamus in the morning. His brother’s gonna drive us.”

“Is that his brother-brother or someone from the Brotherhood?”

“Pop.”

“Alright, alright. I get it. I stopped being funny a long time ago, y’don’t have to remind me.” He pulled up in front of the boys’ entrance of the upper school and cut the engine. He’d walk James into the office and bat his eyelashes at the secretary that Peggy was always teasing him had it bad for him. He’d explain that his son’s tardiness was entirely his fault and plead with her to not put him down for a detention or a demerit or whatever it was that they handed out in private schools. “You’ve got your inhaler? Didn’t leave any books at home? Lunch money? Emergency cash?”

“In my sock. Like always.” Steve had had his bag or his jacket stolen enough times in his youth while he was getting himself pounded into a wall to know the value of a couple of bills in your sock, coins in his case. “Ma’s got Seamus’s house phone in her book. We’re not leavin’ the rec center all night, though.” He sounded slightly putout.

“I’m sorry. I just… I worry.”

“I know y’do. But y’don’t have ta.”

“I love you, ya know that, right?”

“Yeah, Pop.”

“You would tell me if there was somethin’ wrong, right? Anything at all. You can talk t’me.”

“Of course.” Steve gripped the steering wheel and frowned. “What—?”

“Ignore me, kiddo. I’m just bein’ foolish.”

“I know yer worried about Uncle James, Pop. I’m worried ‘bout ‘im too. He use’ta be… I dunno. Funner. Like… like that summer at the beach.”

“You remember that?”

James nodded. “He’s more quiet now.” He chewed his lip. “It’s kinda scary sometimes.”

Steve nodded and pulled James across the front seat into a crushing hug. “You call the house if you need me, yeah?” The boy nodded and pulled away, slipping out of the car with an embarrassed flush on his cheeks.

Peggy was back at the house when Steve got there, the ground floor full of the smell of freshly brewed coffee. She was put together for work, her heeled foot bouncing in time with the music from the radio as she scanned the morning paper and sipped coffee from a delicate china cup. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. That secretary just about swooned. Kinda funny.” Peggy shook her head in disbelief. “You goin’ into the office today?”

“Unfortunately. I’d hoped to take the day, spend it with you.” She craned her neck up for a kiss as Steve leaned over her to grab the carafe of coffee. “But Daniel phoned. There’s something going on. Chatter from the Russians. You’d think with all the linguists and code breakers on the payroll there’d be _someone_ to handle it. Evidently I’m the only one with a good enough grasp of the language.”

“Should I grab Bucky? Be ready to suit up?”

“No, not yet at least. To be honest, I suspect Thompson’s just mucked something up and there isn’t anything to be concerned over.” She finished her coffee and grabbed and apple from the bowl on the counter. “What are your plans? Going to mope around in the empty house?”

“Nah, gotta go into Manhattan to meet a client and stop by the office to pick up a new script. Something called _Fantastic Four_. A stretchy guy, an invisible woman, kid who can set himself on fire, and some kind of monster. Still in development. They want some test sketches.”

“Sounds like it’s right up James’ alley.”

Steve laughed, “Why d’ya think I took it?”

“Will you be home before dinner?” He nodded. “Mind playing chauffer? Lilly’s having a sleep-over with Evelyn.”

“Isn’t that the kid that puked at her birthday party?”

“The very same.”

“Ooh, Director _Carter_.”

“Yes, Captain Rogers?”

“That means we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”

Peggy gasped in mock surprise, “It would seem that way.”

***

“Alright,” Peggy pushed her hair back off of her forehead and pressed her fingers into her temples. “Tell me again what you _think_ you heard.”

“Over the back channels. They’re broadcasting alongside some dinky local radio show outta Hamilton Heights. They’re talking about spiders or something? Wouldn’a thought anything of it if it was just the radio show, but they’re using the local station to mask their signal. It just doesn’t make sense.” Thompson crossed his arms and looked smug.

“What exactly did they say?”

“Churna dava.”

Sousa rolled his eyes and cleared his throat, “Chernaya vdova.” Peggy could feel the apprehension paint itself across her brow. “Yeah, I know. That’s why we had the eggheads dig that thing out of storage.” He gestured to the typewriter that they’d seized during the Leviathan case over a decade ago.

“Has anything come through?”

“Nah, nothin’ on the typewriter yet. Not sure if they’re even usin’ this method anymore. They’ve gotten a lot better at hiding and a hell of a lot better at not allowin’ their people to go on personal revenge missions on their dime.”

Thompson glared and interjected. “The piggyback signal shut down pretty shortly after we picked it up and tuned into it. It was like they knew we were listening.”

“Do we have anyone in the area?”

Someone piped up from the back, “I think Jones moved out that way pretty recently.”

“How’s his Russian?” Sousa raised a brow.

Peggy pursed her lips, “Probably rusty, but far less so than Jack’s.” She raised a brow, daring him to contradict her. “Someone contact him, brief him on the situation. He wasn’t directly involved when we dealt with Leviathan and Underwood, but I’m sure Dugan filled him in at some point. They were all out in the field for quite a while still after that, trying to figure out where that school had moved to.” She flipped through the choppy transcript. Thompson explained that the transmission was full of static, prone to dropping. Sousa backed him up. They’d had one of the linguists listen to the recording and transcribe as much as he could. “Has anyone gotten in touch with Howard Stark?”

“They didn’t say anything about him over the air, but since he was the target before, we decided not ta rule ‘im out yet. Called over to a couple’a his places and got a hold of the butler.”

“Mr. Jarvis.”

“Yeah, he, ah, he said Stark wasn’t in the country right now. Took a vacation with some girl?”

“Maria?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. They’re on a yacht somewhere off the coast ‘a California.” Peggy ruminated over the information, visions of Howard flying a plane loaded with toxic gas toward Manhattan flitting through her head. She could hear herself telling him that there were no compromised soldiers. He was in New York, not Finow. There was no antidote on his craft, it was Midnight Oil itself. He wasn’t going to save anyone, friend or enemy. He was going to effectively kill an entire city. “Jarvis said he’d check out all Stark’s properties, make sure there hasn’t been a security breech anywhere, and give us a call back with an update. Took the liberty of movin’ what we still have of Stark’s toys to a more secure area.”

“Do we have anyone out in that direction to keep an eye on them? Howard can handle himself. Mostly. But Maria doesn’t deserve to be caught up in this mess if it comes to that.”

“Ah, just Jim Morita. Out in Fresno.”

“Right. Someone give him a ring, brief him on the situation.”

***

Steve was working on a rough sketch of Sue Storm, trying to work out how exactly her uniform should look. They’d told him they just wanted a body suit, matching for the whole team. He felt like it was a cop-out. He could be more creative than that. He made a frustrated sound and let his forehead thump down against his drafting table in the Timely office after he’d crumpled his tenth sketch and pitched it across the room into the waste basket. “Dammit.”

It was a relief when the phone rang. “Hello?”

“Steve?”

“Peg, what’s up?” She sounded mildly distraught.

“I’m stuck here at the office. Turns out it wasn’t just Thompson mucking things up.”

“Oh?”

“I—“ She cut herself off. Steve could hear muffled voices, her hand probably over the phone’s speaker. “I’m leaving soon, maybe another hour, there’s really not much more I can do here. But I’m not going to make it out to pick Lillian up from school on time.”

Steve glanced at the clock, there was maybe forty minutes until the end of the school day. He debated calling Bucky, seeing if he could leave work early or use watching Lilly as an excuse to get out of whatever set-up Rebecca had planned for him. “I can get there. I’ll leave now, I’m not doing much more than beating my head against the table.”

“Designs proving more difficult than anticipated?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m gonna take my stuff home, see what James thinks.”

“Brilliant idea.” Peggy sighed heavily, “Now if only he could solve my problems as well.”

“Do I need to call Buck? Be on stand-by?”

“Not just yet. I don’t think this will be a mission for Captain America. So far it’s looking like a local SNAFU. Jones is looking into things.”

“Alright. Let me know. I’ll take care of Tiger Lilly’s slumber party business and get dinner started?”

“Sounds lovely.”

Steve disconnected from Peggy and dialed the operator to get a hold of the school office. “Hi, yes, I’m Steve Rogers. I’m calling about my daughter, Lillian. Yes, in Ms. Bogart’s class. I just wanted to let you know that I’d be a few minutes late picking her up, if you wouldn’t mind holding on to her? No, James doesn’t need any holding on to. His troop leader is collecting him. Yes. I’m in Manhattan, but I’m going to catch the train as soon as I hang up. No, no, I won’t be long at all. Thanks.”

Steve and Peggy had elected to put their children in private school for a number of reasons. Mostly, it was the security that the relative exclusivity provided. Especially in the Carter-Rogers children’s case, there was a very specific list of people who were allowed to have access to them be it records or just picking them up. It seemed to be a favorite method of attack, though one never followed through on, to threaten the safety of the children in order to rile Peggy or Steve or the people close to them. Most threats were baseless; none had come from anyone worth taking particularly seriously. But nonetheless, the fortress that was the St. Francis Xavier building left them much more comfortable and allowed both children to be in the same place at least until James went off to high school in the following year.

When Steve arrived, he made his way to the main office. He was met almost immediately by an attractive blonde who held her hand out to be shook with a sunny smile plastered onto her face. “You must be Captain Rogers.”

Lilly slid off of her seat and bum rushed over, knocking solidly against Steve’s legs. “Papa!”

He looked her over, took note of the pale green dress and her hair pulled up into a neat ballet bun. “Hey, Tinker Bell.” She pressed her lips to his cheek and wrapped her arms around his neck when he lifted her up.

“I thought you were _never_ coming.”

“I’m only ten minutes late!”

“That’s forever, Papa.”

“Alright. I’m sorry. I’ll be on time tomorrow, I promise.” He looked back at the woman still standing there, waiting. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. You’re definitely not Ms. Bogart.”

She laughed, the sound like music, “No, I’m just filling in for a short while. She’s under the weather, I’m afraid. I’m Miss Wood.” She held her hand out again, successful this time in having it taken and shook when Steve shifted Lilly over onto one hip.

“Hope she didn’t give you too much trouble.”

“Oh, not at all, Captain.”

Steve shook his head, “You don’t have to call me that. I’m just Lilly’s Dad.” She giggled and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just a bit excited. When I took this position, the principal told me that there was a special student in the class and that I wasn’t to send her off at the end of the day with just anyone.” She smiled at Lilly. “But I didn’t realize she was _that_ special until we had our lesson today. You see, we were talking about what we want to be when we grow up.”

“I’m gonna be a _movie_ star, Papa.”

“You are, are you?” She nodded. “Last week you said you were going to be the President.” She told him he was very silly and that last week was last week.

“Well, we started our lesson by talking about what our parents did. Lillian told us that her Papa used to be a soldier but that he draws pictures and takes care of her now and her Mama captures bad people so they can’t hurt anyone. I was a little confused, to say the least.”

“I made a picture of Cap’in America. Miss Wood hung it up.”

“She says she’s going to bring your shield in for show-and-tell to prove it. Phillip didn’t believe her.”

“He said I was a liar, Papa.”

“Can I ask what exactly Mrs. Rogers does? Still a little confused on that front.”

“My wife works for the government.”

“Ah.” Miss Wood raised a brow, “Interesting.”

“Sorry, can’t give ya much more than that.”

“Oh! No, I understand. Lillian was just very insistent. She told us how she went to her mother’s office and sent someone on a mission to buy sandwiches.”

Lilly laughed, “Agent Sousa. Mama let me be in charge while you and James were away.”

Steve bit back a laugh, “Was it a dangerous mission?” Lilly nodded solemnly. He turned nodded and waved when the sister who ran the school poked her head out of her private office. “Well, thank you for waiting, Miss Wood.”

“Not a problem.” Steve picked Lilly’s school bag up off the floor and turned to leave the office. “Oh! Capt—Mr. Rogers?”

“Yes?”

She sighed, “I hate to sound rude, but that nail polish?” Lilly frowned and tucked her hands close to her chest. “Lillian told me how her mother painted them so they would match, but it _is_ against dress code.”

“Oh, um, I’ll take it off. I didn’t know. Peggy probably wasn’t thinking.”

“Have a good evening, Mr. Rogers.” He nodded and smiled, slightly unsettled as he made his way out the front of the building, unable to relax until they were in the cool subway tunnel waiting for their train.

Lilly hopped over the lines in the sidewalk, her schoolbag bumping around noisily on her shoulders. “So what happened between you and Phillip?”

“I said you were you and he didn’t believe me. He said I was a liar, Papa.” She looked up at him, as much righteous anger as she could muster screwed up on her face. “I’m not a liar.”

“Did you say anything back to him?”

“Nope.” Steve said her name, warning in his tone. She pushed out her bottom lip. “I said he was a nasty ankle-biter.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Evie’s brother.”

Steve frowned, suddenly not liking the idea of letting his daughter sleep over with her little friend. “That wasn’t very nice, Tiger Lilly.” She looked up at him, her chin quivering. “Don’t do it again, that was a rude thing to say. He shouldn’t have called you a liar. That was rude, too. Go to the teacher next time, okay?” He wondered why the teacher hadn’t said anything about the incident, supposed it could have been dealt with sufficiently in class. She apologized and said she wouldn’t be rude. He slipped his fingers out of Lilly’s delicate hold and shifted the sack of groceries in his other arm. He was proud as hell that Lilly didn’t have a problem standing up for herself but the last thing he wanted was for her to be labeled a troublemaker. It never did him any good and it certainly wouldn’t do for her either.

Lilly knelt in her chair at the breakfast table in the kitchen, bent over her homework—practicing writing her letters for rows and rows—in concentration, the tip of her tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth, while Steve put away groceries and started getting things ready for dinner. It had been as if Peggy had a camera somewhere in the house, she’d phoned home to let him know she’d be just a bit later. He placed a plate down beside Lilly’s elbow when she was finished. She immediately peeled off the top slice of bread from the sandwich, eating it in dainty bites, peanut butter smearing just a bit on either cheek as she plowed through the center of the slice. Next she picked off each round of banana from the middle and popped it into her mouth. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why he even bothered making a sandwich. He should just put a plate full of the fixings in front of her and save the effort.

“Papa? My hair is hurting.” He caught her wrist gently before she touched her head with her sticky fingers and started carefully pulling bobby pins from her ballet bun and rubbing his fingers over her scalp while she hummed contentedly and licked peanut butter off her fingers.

“Lillian?” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “What do you think of Miss Wood?”

“She’s nice.” A shrug of her slender shoulders. “She ties my shoes and she sits on the floor to read stories and sings songs. She’s funner than Ms. Bogart. She’s not old.”

“What did she do when you and Phillip argued?” Another shrug. “Did she put you in time-out or make you write lines?” Lilly shook her head; evidently the woman had just observed the argument and not intervened. Steve glanced up at the clock and went to the sink to get a damp towel to clean up her face and hands with.

Schoolbag packed and ready for the next morning, pajamas and clean clothes tucked into a plastic bag from the market alongside her school things, Lillian bounded up the stairs to greet her friend. They giggled and shrieked and practically tumbled over each other to get through the threshold.

“You sure you can handle all that… energy?” Evelyn’s mother laughed and said of course she could, that Lilly was always a pleasure. The little girl came bounding back outside, hopping off the bottom step and into Steve’s arms. “Ready to come home so soon?”

“No!” She planted a kiss against Steve’s cheek. “I needed to say good night!”

“But it’s not time for bed yet, silly girl.”

“But you won’t _be_ here for bedtime.”

“Yer right, I’m the silly one. Good night, mo leanbh.” She squeezed a tight hug around his neck and wiggled back down out of his arms, yelling that she was _it_.

Steve didn’t like the way his stomach flipped over as he watched her go. He waved to Evelyn’s mother and slipped back into the car.

***

Bucky breathed in deeply, filling his lungs with smoke, savoring the burn. He watched as the end of his cigarette glowed hot, the flame racing toward his lips and ash falling down to waft through the air to the ground. He was truly dreading the evening. Rebecca meant well, he knew, but he hated it when she tried to play matchmaker.

It was rough. Made him ache for a time when his smiles came easy and dames swooned over him instead of whatever they were doing now. Made him ache for that version of himself that was sure and clear-headed. The version that hadn’t been touched by death and violence and crippling pain in more ways than he could really describe to anyone.

His arm throbbed. Only, it really couldn’t, because it wasn’t there. He stubbed out the last bit of his cigarette on the railing and dropped the butt into the flowerpot full of weeds beside him. He tried to ignore the phantom pain, focusing instead on the hollow feeling in his empty stomach and the texture of his ribbed undershirt against the palm of his hand. It wouldn’t stop. He spent a moment massaging the gnarled remnants of his arm before he climbed back in through the window from the fire escape to wash up.

Rebecca smiled and waved from under the weight of her husband’s arm. “Bucky!” Her husband jerked his chin up in greeting and clapped Bucky on the shoulder when he got close. Bucky didn't particularly like the guy, but Becca wouldn't hear a word against him and he was good to the kids. He had a whiff of a suspicion that that was why she'd even started seeing Proctor in the first place, because Bucky didn't very much approve. At least he supported Becca. If there was one thing Bucky never wanted for his sister, it was to see her have to work herself raw to the marrow to get by the way Mrs. Rogers had.

Bucky had suggested going to the pictures for the express purpose that it was at least a solid hour or so in which he didn't have to talk or answer questions or try to social with some woman he didn't know. Then, later, it would give them something to talk about over dinner. They stood there in amiable silence near the box office in the lobby for a  half hour. "I think I'm gettin' stood up, Bec."

His sister frowned deeply and glanced up at her husband. "Just give her five more minutes, we don't have to be in our seats just yet. We can miss the cartoon." Bucky sighed heavily and started to protest, telling her that she should just enjoy the night out with her husband and he'd head back to their house and relieve the babysitter. "No! It's... It's just..." She pinched the bridge of her nose and made a frustrated sound. "She's friendly with Celia."

"Oh." Bucky felt his stomach clench and flutter in embarrassment. Celia had been the girl he'd been out with when the car backfiring induced a panic attack.

"I... I told her that Celia has no business trying to color her attitude before she'd even  _met_  you. She said she'd still come! She said she was interested! Let's just wait. For me? Please?" Bucky grudgingly gave the woman who was clearly not going to show up the additional five minutes that his sister requested. She looked dejected. "I’m sorry, Buck."

He sighed, "It's fine, really."

"There's no reason the three of us can't enjoy the movie anyway." She looped her arms through those of the men on either side of her and pulled them toward the theater door. Bucky dragged his feet.

"It's really fine, Bec, I promise. You two have fun. I'll go watch the rugrats, I'd prefer to, actually." He planted a kiss on her cheek and disentangled their arms so he might leave.

"Bucky, I--"

"Y'know, there was a time in my life when I didn't have'ta have my little sister try'da set me up on dates." Not that he  _wanted_ her to set him up. "Could walk up ta any dame 'n have her on my arm and onna the dance floor without breakin' a sweat."

"James," Bucky raised a brow, use of any combination of his given names usually meant Becca meant business. "You can  _still_  have your pick of any of the women in New York. Heck," she dropped her voice just slightly lower, "you could probably have your pick of some of the men if you preferred that!” Proctor snickered beside her and she shot him a warning glare. "You just don't  _try_. I know you've changed. I know things are different. I know you've experienced a lot of... a lot of really terrible things." She always had difficulty with the details of the time Bucky spent as a prisoner of HYDRA and the way he was injured. "But that doesn't mean you should just stop  _trying_. You can't get by not living in the world."

He knew her scolding came from a place of love and concern, but he couldn't help the annoyance that flared through him. "Yer askin' fer too much, Rebecca! What do you want me'da do? Just stroll up to some random woman and ask her to dinner?" The teenager manning the ticket booth looked over, a concerned expression on her face. 

"If that's what's going to get you out of this funk, then yes!" She turned around in place, eyes fierce as they scanned the room. "Her." She pointed to a woman standing near the concession stand. "Go talk to her." The woman pushed a lock of curly red hair behind her ear and rubbed at the back of one calf with the opposite foot as she accepted a box of Red Hots from the boy behind the counter.

Bucky stood up straight and squared his shoulders, accepting the challenge even through his argument, "She's gotta be half my age, Bec. That's ridiculous. Just go watch the damn pi'cher and I'll see you when ya get home." Rebecca glared, tapping her foot. "Fine! Fine! I'm going!"

His palms grew immediately clammy; nervous like it was the first time he spoke to a girl with any seriousness in high school. He glared over his shoulder at Rebecca who shooed him forward. He walked up to the concession stand and asked for an Abba Zaba. The redhead sighed in relief when the kid behind the counter went to the other end to get Bucky his change. "Thanks."

Bucky furrowed his brow in confusion. "For what?"

"He wouldn't take  _no_ for an answer." She held up her ticket, "My movie starts soon."

His heart thumped against his ribs erratically. "Mine too."

"Ah, looks like we're going together." She smiled and plucked his ticket from between his fingers, a bit crumpled from the way he was clutching it. The kid behind the counter flushed red and pushed Bucky's coins into his hand and turned on his heel to storm away. The redhead stifled a giggle. Bucky was suddenly extremely aware of the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the threads of silver in his hair. She looped her arm through his and steered him toward the theater. He noticed the smug grin on Rebecca's face when he passed the row she and her husband were sitting in. The redhead indicated a pair of free seats. She sat down, the motion like a raindrop sliding down a windowpane. "I'm Natalia, by the way." He blinked down at her, opening his mouth but not succeeding in making any words come out of it. "You should probably sit. The cartoon is starting."

"I'm... I'm Bucky." He sat down, back ramrod straight, hands folded in his lap.

She laughed softly and whispered over the sound of a singing bucket of popcorn. "Bucky? That sounds like something you call a ten year old." She crossed her legs, her shoe brushing against his shin.

He couldn't help but smile to himself at the little jab. "It's James, but no one really calls me that."

"May I call you James?" He nodded. "Well then, James, what are you doing here all on your lonesome? Handsome fella like yourself?"

"My, ah, my sister. She's with her husband," he gestured back to the rows behind them with a jerk of his head. "She tried ta set up this blind double date hooey. Got stood up."

"Now that I just flat out don't believe." Her eyes sparkled mischievously in the light cast on the audience from the projection screen. Someone behind them shushed loudly. Natalia rolled her eyes and settled down in her seat. Bucky slouched, spine curving into the worn seat-back, and peeled open the wrapper on his candy bar quietly.

***

Peggy let her head bump back against the solid door when she closed it. Music floated through the otherwise quiet house.  _Hey, Venus! Oh, Venus! Venus if you will, please send a little girl for me to thrill. A girl who wants my kisses and my arms, a girl with all the charms of you._  Steve was in the kitchen, humming along with Frankie Avalon as he stirred a big pot on the stove, steam coming up and curling around him. She moved up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She laid her head against the dip between his muscled shoulders and let the warmth of him soak into her tired body. He paused in his stirring to slip an arm around and rub his hand over her waist in greeting and turn the page of the cookbook on the counter beside the stove.

"Venus, if you do, I promise that I will always be true." He set the spoon down and twisted in her arms, backing her away from the stove. He moved them in a lazy circle, gathering her up close. "I'll give her all the love I have to give as long as we both shall live. Hey, Venus! Oh, Venus! Make my wish come true." He smiled softly down at her, his eyes looking weary. "Hey, Peg. Oh, Peg. Make my wish come true."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I said I'd be home ages ago."

He shook his head, shrugged. "It's your job t'be there when shit gets tough. I'd think there was somethin' wrong if you'da shown up here earlier." He turned the knobs on the stove down. "You--we--shippin' out?"

"No, if the threat is real it's very much local. Hamilton Heights."

"Up by Gabe?"

She nodded. "We've decided to keep it covert. Won't be calling in the Stars and Stripes just yet. The last time we dealt with the Russians," She peeled herself reluctantly away from his embrace to fetch dishes from the cupboard. "With Leviathan and Dottie Underwood, it was very..."

"Personal."

"Mhm." She frowned down at the drawer full of utensils. "So we're pretending things are business as usual." Steve pulled twisted gobs of long pasta out of the water and dropped it into the pan full of simmering tomatoes and onions and garlic and herbs.

"You still takin' tomorrow off?" She nodded. "Ya sure that's a good idea?"

"If they're as thorough as they were last time, they already know all of our schedules, routines. If I showed up at the office when I was expected not to, it would raise alert." She held a plate out for Steve to put pasta onto. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure it's a threat we should be reasonably worried about. They mentioned Widows, Red Room agents," Steve tensed. Peggy remembered all too well his last mission in Russia, leaving the day Peggy confirmed her pregnancy, "but it's not as if we haven't heard that chatter before. We're in the middle of a stand off with the Soviet Union. It's an election year. There's a lot just  _going on_  in general." They sat down at the breakfast table. Peggy kicked her shoes off under the table and situated her feet in Steve's lap while he reached over and poured dark red wine into the glass in front of her. "I think Jack might have jumped the gun, but I understand why. The broadcast was so... close. I brought a radio home so the office could reach me quickly if there's an emergency."

"I take it Gabe is in the loop?" She nodded. "Y'know, Bucky's Russian is pretty damned good. He could use a job. Not like he's a familiar face, either, 'less somehow they were up in a nest with 'im."

Peggy considered it for a moment. "If they're here though, he's closely associated with us. He may be a ghost in the field, but he's like a homing beacon in Brooklyn."

They ate in comfortable silence; Steve pausing once or twice to remove what Peggy was sure was an invisible bit of sauce from the corner of her mouth with his. He pushed his seat out when he was finished, holding her ankles steady over his lap. She refilled her glass, groaning in mixed discomfort and pleasure as she sipped her wine and Steve's thumbs kneaded firmly into knotted muscles of her calves.

"Have you met Lilly's teacher yet?"

"Ms. Bogart? Of course. We were both there when we briefed her at the beginning of the school year, darling. Don't you remember?"

"No, no. The substitute, Miss Wood. Did you meet her when you dropped Lilly off this morning?"

"No, I didn't."

"I met her this afternoon. I called in to let the office know I was coming, that I might be a few minutes late since I was in Manhattan. Miss Wood was waiting with her when I got there."

"You've got that line between your eyebrows, darling. Is something wrong?"

"I don't think so. Sister Alice and the Monsignor're good about vetting people that come near our kids. She just... asked a lot of questions, I guess." Peggy winced when he dug his thumbs in particularly firmly; the tightness in her toes all but disappeared when he let up. "Somethin' about the way she looked at me. Like... like a crocodile."

"Lilly seems to like her." Steve nodded, his expression thoughtful. 

Peggy stood and picked up her dish. When she made a move to take Steve's as well, he seized her arm gently, made her put them down before he pulled her into his lap. His hands were firm and comforting as they rubbed slow circles over her back, the constant warmth of them soaking in through the ribbed knit over her torso. "I missed you this weekend."

"I missed you too." She leaned in, kissing him slowly, opening his lips with hers, tasting the sharp wine and earthy food on his tongue. A hand moved to her lap, sliding up smoothly over her tights under the knit skirt.

"I hate these things," he mumbled into the dip just behind her ear.

"The nylons?"

"Mhm." He rolled the high collar down slightly and sucked wet kisses against her neck. "Stockin's 'r better."

"Mm." Peggy sighed, draping herself over him while he mouthed at the line of her jaw. She slid her fingers into his hair, silky and smooth. "But tights are easier." A shudder ran through her when he insinuated his hand between her legs, pressing his fingers up against the firm fabric of the tights.

"Tights're a pain in the ass." She chuckled, caught his lips up in hers.

"For you, perhaps." She groaned, the pressure against her labia delicious as he prodded and rubbed. "I find them rather useful." Kiss. "No pesky clips." Kiss. "No falling down." Kiss. "Help keep all of my lumps and bumps nice and smooth."

Steve pulled away, shock on his face. "What lumps and bumps?"

"Darling, I am forty-one. There are lumps and bumps."

"Nope."

"I'm not some carved Madonna."

"Never said ya were. But y'don't need ta be. Yer not perfect, nobody is. Yer better."

"And how is that?"

"You're Peggy." She started to tell him that he was foolish when the phone began to ring. "I guess Lilly isn't sleeping over after all."

"Could be SHIELD."

Peggy stood and gathered their plates and silver wear again while Steve went to answer the phone. "Hello? Yes, this is he... Is everything all right? I can be there in five minutes... No, he hasn't had an attack in a while. Is he okay? Yes. Please, I'd like to talk to him." Peggy walked over to slip her arm around Steve's waist, trying to listen to the other side of the conversation. "James? I'm here. Is everything okay?" Peggy could just hear their son, breathing ragged, voice wavering as he explained that he'd had a massive asthma attack. "I know... I know, mo leanbh. It's scary. You're allowed to be scared. I always was, too... Try to take a deep breath. Can you do that for me? Good. Really good. Do you want me to come pick you up? It's okay if you want to come home. Anybody there says anything about it, I'll sock 'em right in the jaw." A short laugh from the other end. "You know I will, James." Peggy wasn't entirely sure Steve was joking. He took any ill will toward their children, especially their son, exceedingly seriously. "Okay. Listen to me. Keep trying to take nice deep breaths. Good. Y'got yer inhaler. Yer with good people. Y'know the other bow and arrow bandits'll keep ya safe." Steve let out a breathy laugh, his expression relaxing a little. "Yeah, yeah, I know.  _Arrowmen._  You and yer fancy Boy Scout club." A few seconds of silence, just the two of them listening to the other breathe. She knew Steve was trying to stay as steady as he could, James on the other end trying to match the pattern of Steve's breathing. "James, if you need to come home, you can. Doesn't matter if it's five minutes from now or two in the mornin'. You call and I'll come get ya." Steve's lips pulled up into a wistful smile on one side. "I love you too. Try to have a fun night."

He hung the phone back up and sighed, he said there was nothing to worry about but seemed to be actively restraining himself from going off to fetch James home. "You know," Peggy pecked a kiss against his cheek and tugged him away from the phone. She set a Tupperware container in his hands and moved to load the pile of leftover pasta from the pan into it. "First time I laid eyes on you, never would have imagined any of this."

He huffed out an amused sounding breath. "No, I'm sure ya were just imaginin' me droppin' dead in the middle'a the trainin' field." He put the container down and licked and errant smudge of sauce off of his thumb. He pressed the lid down and passed the container to Peggy to stow in the fridge.

"Well, yes. There was that. But later, I mean. When I  _really_  saw you."

"After--"

"No, still at camp. We were playing cards in the Mess. You and I, another one of the WAC ladies from the office and one--no, two other Privates. Someone walked by, less than accidentally knocked over your coffee. It spilled in your lap."

"I vaguely remember that." He raised a brow. "Kind of fades in wit'all the other cafeteria bullyin', t'be honest. School, automat, Army. All the same."

"You just shook out your pant leg and said it had gone cold anyway. I asked why you didn't do anything about it." Steve looked to the side, cheeks blooming with color. "You said--"

"He wasn't gonna pass 'is rifle test. He'd be gone soon. Not worth the effort. He w's just miffed at me gettin' higher marks, easier to take it out on someone else than admit yer own faults."

"But you still looked like... like the heat of a thousand suns was burning you up from the inside. I thought you looked like a Schiele portrait."

"Didn' wanna fight in fronna you," he finished the wine in his glass and rinsed it out in the sink. "Was tryin' not ta get kicked outta the Army before I even really got  _in._ " He took her glass from her. "I looked like a who?"

"Schiele. Raw, brooding. Something important simmering under the surface. Abraham found the comparison quite entertaining. He was a little surprised I made it, the body of Schiele's work considered."

Steve narrowed his eyes, "That  _ugly_  thing you hung in the office? The half-finished thing that  _watches_  me?" Peggy laughed and nodded and insisted it wasn't ugly. Steve corralled her against the counter. He leaned in close and dropped his voice an octave. "Were ya thinkin' about angry lookin' paintin's when I had my face b'tween yer legs? When the lights wen' out in Brooklyn?"

Peggy laughed, "No, farthest thing from my mind. You were very talented, didn't leave much thought for anything else."

"I was gonna suggest we get a fire goin' and make out on every surface'a the livin' room like a couple'a teenagers." Peggy snorted at the absurdity of the suggestion. "But I think maybe I should put you on the dinin' table. Have some dessert." Peggy pressed her lips together, desperately trying not to laugh at his ridiculousness. His breath was humid against her ear. "I think I need ta change that  _were_  to an  _are._ " He sucked her earlobe into his mouth for a moment. "But first ya gotta get rid'a those  _fukin' tights._ " It was no use. She laughed, forceful and from her belly.

"Can I make a confession?"

"It's all lies. All that roman'ic nonsense ya just spewed. Lies."

"No, no. It's just," She smoothed her hands up over his chest. "The heart is willing. Very willing. The body is exhausted."

He softened, energy tangibly changing. "That's okay." They left the kitchen, heading up the stairs to change for the night. "I'll read to you. We never finished  _Xaipe._ "

"I'd rather start the other one, the one you just bought?"

"Ninety-five?"

She nodded, "You can read while I have a soak."

"Why can't we both have a soak?" They ran the water while they undressed each other, clothes left haphazard through the second floor. The big, claw-footed tub easily held them together. Peggy settled back against Steve's chest, his legs bracketing her on either side, the water just teetering on the edge of too hot. Steve held their book in one hand, balanced against the lip of the tub; the other arm circled her waist. "To stand alone on some autumnal afternoon no air is air and thing is thing, no bliss..." She drifted, lulled by the comfort and security of her position.

***

Natalia laughed, making no attempt to be quiet or demure. They were hold-up in a booth in the back of a twenty-four hour diner, several cups of coffee and a few pieces of pie in, dinner long since finished. "So, your sister  _dared_  you to come talk to me?"

"Sort of?"

"You have to admit, that's a bit pathetic."

"Oh I admit it, believe me." It was strange. He'd known this girl for all of a few hours, if you didn't count the time they'd simply sat next to each other in the dark of the movie theater it was less. But there was something about her that made him feel at ease. It felt like he'd known her for years. She didn't pry, didn't ask probing questions, didn't try to purposefully steer the conversation away from anything awkward. It was... organic. Bucky wondered briefly if this was the way Steve felt around Peggy. Just completely comfortable. Able to be himself unabashedly. "Past couple, well, several years, things've been... hard. Can't quite put my finger on the problem. I was doin' good. Y'know, good job, decent place ta live. But I was just always kinda on edge, waitin' fer the other shoe'da drop. I," he cleared his throat, knowing that if nothing else, his next comment would date him. "I fought, in the War. The one with Germany, not Korea." He winced when she raised a brow. "Got taken by the enemy. Never... never really felt like myself after." He finished the lukewarm coffee sitting in front of him to put some distance between himself and that admission. He pushed the empty mug toward the edge of the table so the waitress would refill it as she walked by. "Realized I was just pretendin' t'be good. Lettin' everyone else's happiness cover up my own... emptiness. I was alone, not really with anybody, not really tryinna be, either. Got a gaggle'a nieces and nephews, good friends. Didn't feel like I needed anybody. Bec's solution when she realized somethin' was wrong was to push every single friend she had in my dire'tion. Every date was a goddamn disaster. Jus' made me feel worse." He smiled up at the waitress and thanked her when she poured him a fresh cup.

"Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel." Natalia shrugged. "Is it terrible that I'm a little glad you got stood up tonight?" She blushed prettily and hid behind her own mug.

Bucky could feel the grin settle in on his face. "I can't imagine why ya decided ta hang around. Yer young and beautiful--don't you have a line 'a fellas waitin' ta take ya out?"

She shook her head, "No, I keep to myself for the most part. I've only been living here in New York for a short while, staying with some family. I don't know many people." She looked down at her mug. "And you're interesting, James."

The way his name sounded on her lips made his knees turn to jelly. He reached out for his mug and managed to knock it over with his prosthetic hand, hot coffee spilling across the table. "Shit!" The waitress immediately came over with a dishtowel to mop the mess up. Bucky found himself apologizing a dozen times over and then twice more when she came back to the table with a fresh mug. "'Nother one of the many reasons dating is difficult."

"Really?" She cocked her head to the side as she blotted a small spot of coffee from her blouse. "That's the first time all night I would have suspected you had any trouble with it. To be honest, I forgot that wasn't real." She put her napkin down and reached out tentatively. Bucky moved his arm off the table, letting it settle in his lap instead.

"Yer just sayin' that."

"I don't just say things, it's true." She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. "Can I ask how you lost it?"

"The War."

"While you were a prisoner?"

"No. After."

"So you were freed at some point?"

"Rescued, actually. Nearly my entire regiment. It was kind of a miracle." He wrapped his fingers around the new mug, the warmth of it dispelling some of his nerves. Natalia made a thoughtful sound but didn't press further. It was something he'd noticed in several of his failed dates: Many of the women, hell many  _people_ , had a morbid fascination with the hows and whys of both his amputation and imprisonment. It reminded him of the way when you passed an accident or a fight, you couldn't look away. Natalia seemed satisfied with what he'd offered. Bucky frowned down at his mug, unable to believe, suddenly, that any of the night had been genuine. "Look, Natalia, I'm sure ya've already gathe'd as much, but I'm over the hill--I'm forty-three. I've been around the block, I've seen... I've done shit. I'm damaged goods. I have nothin'a offer a gal like you. Nothin' ya'd want, anyway."

"I'm not looking for you to offer me anything, James. I find you interesting; I've enjoyed talking to you. I don't think I really care that you've seen or done things. Isn't that inherent with war? You don't seem very damaged to me." She frowned. "Just lonely. Maybe in need of someone to listen. Someone who won't try to fix you." She folded her arms. "And your age is irrelevant to me, even though you seem terribly concerned about it." She glanced down at her watch, "The time, however, is. My aunt is going to kill me if I stay out much later." She slid out of the booth and fished in her purse for her wallet, leaving enough cash on the table for her half of the meal in spite of Bucky's protests. "I'd like to see you again, James."

"I... I think I'd like that too."

"Here? Tomorrow. Seven o'clock."

"It's a date."  His eyes widened and she pressed her lips together in an amused smile.

***

Natalia didn't quite understand why the second agent had been sent in with her. She could have very easily, and probably more quickly, taken the exact same cover and accomplished the exact same objectives. It was a personal vendetta, she knew, but the thing was, personal vendettas didn't exist when you were an agent of the Red Room. There was the mission. There was only the mission. There were no friends or allies. Only marks and objectives.

And the  _name_  she'd chosen for her cover! It was so out of date. Completely unbelievable for someone who was supposed to be in her twenties--though her twenties had passed her by at least that many years ago. She insisted that it was all part of the ultimate game.

The mission was to seize the child and bring it back to the Academy. Natalia knew very little beyond what was strictly need-to-know and she liked it that way. It made her job more efficient.

The job was to identify Captain America, also known as Steve Rogers. His wife was already a known figure, but Rogers was more difficult. It was that ridiculous helmet. After that, it would be much easier to identify his children, to get close to them. Take the child quickly, get back to base.

"Did you mark your man?"

"Yes, as completely unnecessary as it was, I did."

"Did you acquire any useful information or just make doe eyes at him all night?"

Natalia squashed down the annoyance that flared up in her. "Very minimally useful. It's the man Rogers is friendly with, his Sergeant. There is a great deal of familial affection between them. He considers himself uncle to the target."

Her mouth curled into a crocodile’s smile. "Good. It'll hurt more than I even hoped for." She turned her back on Natalia to look again at the web of photographs and information tacked onto the underside of the bed that flipped down from the wall. Smiling children. Rogers on the train. Carter on the street. Barnes at the dock. Agents of SHIELD going in and out of the office or their homes, one in particular with a cane. A smartly dressed man directing staff outside of an expensive looking home. She was making this personal. She was making this complicated. "Hello, Peggy. Did you miss me?"

***

Even with the stress of the previous day at the office, and the trepidation of having her children both away from home for a full night, Peggy found herself slipping easily off to sleep.

It was easy to sleep when Steve was beside her. It was easy to sleep with the knowledge that no matter what, she was safe. That her children were safe. Because Steve would march across enemy territory on his own, jump out of a plane under enemy fire, face down disgruntled teachers, keep a home in working order, and wait or run with open and willing arms. Because he would lay down his life. Because he made her feel safe. Because he was still the man she met at Camp Leigh even after two decades and a war and two children and all of the various medical and social emergencies that had risen in that time.

The sun was warm and bright as it streamed in through the open bedroom window. It was well passed the time she usually woke; Steve must have turned the alarm off. She had to stop herself from peeling her body out of bed to wake the children and start the day. Steve's hand was a weight on her shoulder, just resting there, the rolled hem on the sleeve of her nightgown caught delicately between his fingers.

He looked impossibly young, the morning light caught in his long eyelashes and hair and making it all look like spun gold. His countenance was smooth, free of the worry lines that inevitably settled in over the course of the day. His lips, just barely parted, curled into a smile when Peggy reached out to brush his hair away from his forehead. “Morning.” He opened his eyes just enough to peer at her though his lashes. “Sleep okay?”

Peggy turned over and pulled his arm close around her. “Very.” Steve molded his body around hers and they drifted, luxuriating in the solace of the empty house and the early hour—little traffic, no bustling pedestrians. She shifted and wiggled, trying to settle down again. Steve made a muffled sound against her hair, shifting away, turning his hips.

“Sorry.”

She craned her neck over her shoulder, reaching to scratch affectionately at the back of his neck. “For what?”

“W’s havin’a good dream.”

“About me, I hope.”

“Nah, Mae West.” He buried his face further against the back of her neck and yelped when she yanked his ear.

“What should we do with two willing bodies in a warm bed?”

“Two?”

“Mm.” Peggy sighed and pushed back against him, his erection rubbing against her backside through the layers of silk and chiffon of her nightgown and his own flannel pants. His arm moved down across her waist, hand fisting in the fabric to pull it up. The calloused pads of his fingers ran over her thighs sending ripples of sensation over the surface of her skin. She squeezed her legs together, trapping his hand between them as he rubbed at her sex over the cotton of her panties. She sighed and threaded her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck as he freed his hand gently to hook his fingers into the waistband and roll them down over her hips. His fingers wandered back up, teasing, making her squirm, pins and needles dancing down her legs into the soles of her feet. She kicked the covers away, too warm too quickly, and he pressed her down into the mattress, her back dipping, inhaling the mingled scents of hair and sleep and lingering shampoo on the pillows. He gripped her backside while he mouthed imprecisely at her neck and shoulders. "Stop teasing... or I shall go back to sleep."

He chuckled, dark and deep. The mattress shifted and bounced as Steve pushed his pajama pants down. His head, hot and thick, dragged through her folds. She blushed at the slick feeling and gripped her pillow as he slid home. They laid still, close and warm and calm. His belly pressed to her back, pelvis against her backside, breath against her neck. When he finally moved, it was slow and as imprecise as his kissing. As enjoyable as it was maddening, his varied pace and force was made all the more focused by the way her legs were trapped together with her panties rolled around her thighs. She pushed back against him, disrupting his movements with her own. They slowed and stopped and started again, Steve guiding her body with his arms to turn them onto their sides. Peggy hooked her legs around his, impeded again by the allowance of her rumpled undergarment. Her frustrated groan seemed to sink in to Steve's brain somewhere between the sloppy, wet kisses he was leaving against her jaw and neck. He moved away, making her feel empty and distant for the brief moments it took for him to remove the offending garment and his own bottoms. She let him manhandle her, entertained by his sudden burst of urgency as he slotted their bodies together again, hooking her foot behind his knee to give himself some semblance of leverage as he fucked into her slowly.

Peggy reached back, drawing his face toward her, searching with drowsy lips for his. "Steve." He answered with a pleased grunt and a thrust of his lips. "Turn." He started to roll her forward again and she responded by rolling back. He groaned and shifted, pushing them up on the bed with his heels planted in the mattress. Peggy laid back against him, allowing her body to go nearly slack and rolling her hips down and he rolled his up.

She felt like a tether about to snap, rubbed ceaselessly against a dull blade to no avail. 

"Touch me."

And touch he did.

He snaked his arms around her, holding her close. The fingers of one hand wandered down, caressing arms and stomach and finally finding her clitoris. Fingers of the other roamed up, stroking through her tangled hair and breezing over her cheek and throat and down to grope pleasantly at her bosom.

Peggy shuddered through her release, grabbing at his hands, not allowing him to move. His kissed sweetly at the hollow behind her ear, murmuring ridiculous things about how beautiful she was and how lucky he was while she came back to herself. Heart no longer fluttering wildly, she eased herself up, sighing at the fullness of being seated properly with Steve's still hard cock inside her. He gripped her hips, rough hands and gentle force, as she rocked and pulled her muscles tight to bring him off.

"Ah--ah!"

She looked over her shoulder and stifled a laugh. Steve had his eyes squeezed shut, his fist between his teeth. "You don't need to be quiet. The house is empty." He laughed, manic and pleased, lips moving but not quite making words. He patted her hip, helping her unseat herself. They laid beside each other, touching and kissing while the sun situated itself fully in the sky. Peggy sighed contentedly, "I think I'm ready for breakfast. It'll be nice to have something other than oatmeal." Steve looked down at her, eyebrow raised high and a cocksure smirk on his face. He slid down, moving back on his knees, and disappeared beneath the hem of her nightgown.

***  
Bucky woke feeling... odd. He’d slept well, he felt refreshed. He was actually looking forward to the day’s work.

The last time he remembered feeling that good he’d been going steady with Connie. Fresh from training, still laboring at the docks but full of the swagger of being a newly minted Sergeant. They were making the rent without too much worry for the first time in months. Steve was bringing in loads of commissions, there was hardly a time that Bucky’d seen him away from his little drawing table under the window, dressed in his suspenders and undershirt, all stained with charcoal and ink and sweat. It was a good time.

Maybe when Tiny James had come screaming and spitting into his life. That had been a good time. The kid had given him a reason to keep up with the world. But then he’d blinked and the kid had turned into a mouthy teenager by some manner of witchcraft and it took a lot more than turning him upside down or buying him a cotton candy at Coney Island to make him laugh. Bucky looked at the kid and still saw the unhappy infant getting oil smeared on his forehead over a font or the little boy with is hair all stiff from the ocean spray running on the beach that last summer before he'd gone through all of those god-awful surgeries and started school. Runs to the pharmacy, babysitting, teaching him how to defend himself on the playground, helping with homework... Tiny James made him feel important and needed.

Bucky knew it wasn't the best thing, to place all of his self-worth on this kid. But who else could he take care of? Rebecca had stopped needing him to look after her a long time ago. So did Steve, when he went and got himself turned into whatever it was he got himself turned into. Lillian was just out of the question, girl was so damned much like Steve it was ridiculous--dote on her and you'd find yourself wishing you hadn’t (except for her Pop, of course, she had  _him_  wrapped right around her finger from the moment she opened her eyes).

But that was what was so incredibly confusing about Natalia.

She very obviously didn't need him. She was strong and smart and vibrant--a lot like Peggy, he had to admit, though less rough around the edges. Everything about her was confusing and frustrating and completely exciting. As he strapped himself into his prosthetic for the day, cinching the leather straps around his shoulder and back and wincing at the feel of it against his chafed skin, he ran through the entire previous evening in his head.

He realized he knew very little about her.

She was a dancer. Lived with her aunt. New to the city. Liked classical music and blues and Dorothy Lamour movies. Drank her coffee with just the smallest bit of cream.

That was... not a lot to go on.

His phone rang just as he was about to leave. "Barnes."

"Mornin', jerk."

"Punk."

"You free this afternoon?" Steve sounded far away for a moment, "Peg, stop!"

"Ah, not really. Somethin' ya need?" He spoke to Peggy again, telling her very definitively that that was not where he intended the pancake batter to go. Bucky didn't want to know what the hell was going on over at the brownstone. Peggy laughed wickedly in the background and something sizzled.

"Sorry, what was that?" Bucky rolled his eyes and repeated himself. "Right. Think y'can pick Lilly up from school t'day?"

"I'm gonna be in the office late. Dock's busy this week. I can give Bec a ring if y'want."

"That would be great. Yer a lifesaver, Buck."

"Yeah, yeah. Go take care'a that woman."

Steve chuckled and thanked him. "Hey, hold up a minute." There was shuffling and static like Steve was stretching he phone cord too far and jiggling the connection. "Bucky, can ya look inna somethin' for me?"

"Shoot."

"Go give Jones a visit if ya can? Somethin' goin' on up in that area. Some chatter over the radio."

"Red Room?"

"Maybe."

"On it." He was too quiet and calm. "Carter know about this?"

"The chatter? Yeah. How d'ya think I know about it?"

"No, you know what I mean, punk."

"She doesn't."

"Since when d'ya hide anything from 'er?"

"I just... I've got a bad feelin', Buck."

"A'right. But if we find anythin' out 'r get in trouble, yer the first one I'm tattling on."

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

Bucky hung the phone back on the wall and moved to pull the strap of his bag over his head. His skin burned with irritation. It was going to be a long day.

***

The day was blowing by far too quickly.

They'd made pancakes piled high with whatever fruit was sitting in the fridge and swimming in syrup. It was decadent and kind of wasteful and had felt entirely right. Peggy had finally relented and allowed him to scratch the dried batter off of his nose, satisfied with how ridiculous he'd looked throughout their meal.

There were things to be done around the house that still needed to be thought of, they couldn't spend quite the entire day being completely irresponsible. Peggy ran down to the basement to throw a load of wash into the machine while Steve cleaned up the kitchen and pulled something out of the freezer to defrost for dinner when the kids got home. He made his way upstairs to the bedroom to settle himself back down at his drafting table, the unfinished sketch waiting for him there, mocking his frustration. He sketched and erased and sketched and erased and traced and traced and tried different styles of costume and added capes and took them away and wanted to just throw his hands up in frustration. Peggy had settled herself on the bed. He'd rather sketch her, elegant and casual laid out on her stomach with her heels in the air. She was quietly reading a book that she'd been trying to get through in starts and stops since the beginning of the summer.

"Call the office?"

"Yes, no major updates. Everything's gone quiet. Just working through getting what we have decoded and translated."

"Too quiet?" He glanced over his shoulder at her, wondering when Bucky would make his way over to Manhattan.

"Not really. Chatter is always inconsistent." Espionage wasn't his thing. Never was. Too much sitting and waiting when all his brain and body wanted to do was  _go._

He sighed and turned back to his work. He wished James were home. His son always seemed to have a brilliant idea whenever he got stuck on something, whether it was work for Timely or some advertisement. Steve drummed his fingers against the desk with one hand and tapped his pencil against it with the other, setting out a beat with his restless hands.

_Bum-bum-bum-BUM Bum-bum-bumbum-bum-BUM-BUM..._

The mattress springs creaked as Peggy shifted her weighed onto her side behind him.

"A gentleman was passing by, he asked for a drink as he got dry at the well below the valley, oh." He continued to thump out the rhythm against the surface of the table as he stared down at his drawing. "Green grows the lily, oh. Right among the bushes, oh." Peggy's book thumped closed, a mild interruption. Steve leaned back in his chair and tapped his feet against the floor, bare skin slapping against hard wood to enhance his beat. "My cup is full up to the brim, if I were to stoop I might fall in at the well below the valley oh! Green grows the lily, oh! Right among the bushes, oh!"

"In a musical mood, are we?"

"In a  _let's avoid workin' on this damned thing_  mood." He grinned at her over his shoulder and continued to tap out the beat for a moment before he lunged out of his chair and caught her hand. She yelped in surprise when he swept her off the bed and spun her around and dropped her lightly on her feet. He tugged her around, getting her to go around with him, spinning madly around the room with their hands clasped tightly together.

"If your true love was passing by, you'd fill him a drink as he got dry at the well below the valley, oh! Green grows the lily, oh! Right among the bushes, oh!"

Her face grew pink. Her forehead shimmered with moisture. Her eyes sparkled.

"He said, 'Young maid, you're swearing wrong, for six fine children you had born at the well below the valley, oh!' Green grows the lily, oh! Right among the bushes, oh! If you be a man of noble fame, you'll tell to me the father of them at the well below the valley, oh! Green grows the lily, oh! Right among the bushes, oh!"

Peggy laughed as they spun and hopped and he lifted her into his arms to twirl in the opposite direction. Her hair came out in loose tendrils around her face that escaped from her neat ponytail.

"There's two buried beneath the stable door at the well below the valley, oh! Green grows the lily, oh! Right among the bushes, oh!"

He moved them faster, setting her down briefly on her feet. She wobbled, unable to keep the bouncy pace he set to the same rhythm he'd tapped out with his fingers and pencil. She squeezed her eyes shut, her laughter soundless and breathless. Steve slowed his momentum, chucking Peggy back onto the bed, sweaty and panting with a delirious smile plastered across her face. He crawled up onto the bed, planted kisses against her sticky neck while he hovered over her on his elbows. He softened his tone to continue.

"I'll be seven years a-ringing the bell, but the Lord above may save my soul from portin' in Hell at the well below the valley, oh. Green grows the lily, oh. Right among the bushes, oh."

Peggy panted and ran her hands up and down his arms. "You sing that to Lillian."

"Yup. She likes the bits about the lily growin'."

"That's an awful song." She raised a brow as she looked up at him.

"Well, I don't sing her the parts about the maiden's children." She nodded and closed her eyes as he brushed his lips against her hot cheek. "Where have you been, Peggy? Where have you been? In the garden among the gillyflowers..." He trailed off, settling down over her body and taking up humming the melody.

"I know you can carry a tune, but... You've never sung to me."

"Huh?"

"You've never sung. Or danced like that."

"We dance."

"Not that way. That was  _not_  a Lindy or a waltz. That was just energy." He made a sound of agreement. "You don't sing to me."

"Never thought you'd want me to."

"I want all of you. Every bit. Always have." She shifted and turned them so she was straddling his hips, her hands holding his face and looking down at him very seriously. He thought about their first encounters, how she'd asked him what he thought of the novels and books of poetry he'd brought to camp with him, how she'd absorbed everything he said like a sponge. "We've been married since we came home from War and you've never once done that. Why wait until now?"

Steve shrugged, suddenly very self-conscious. "Everythin' happened really fast." It had. They'd never really gotten to know each other outside of their mission before they'd jumped into line at the court house. It was all the same to Steve, he still wouldn't have ever proposed to any other woman after he'd met Peggy. But now all of the distance between them came crashing into perfect clarity. All the things they really didn't know about each other even after years of marriage and working together and two children. All of the hours Peggy spent at the SHIELD offices either away at the old Camp Leigh or the building that used to be the SSR. All the hours Steve spent hunched over his drafting table. They were an amazing team and he loved her with everything he had and he loved their kids with even more, but there were things missing.

"We never courted properly, did we?"

"Not really."

"Do you regret it?"

"No! Not for a second." _Sometimes. Yes. Maybe? No. Definitely not. Maybe._

"Then... then why do you hold back?"

"Jus' use't it." He looked down, or as much as he could given he was lying on his back. After everything, he still found himself feeling like the skinny kid trying to keep a dame interested on a blind pity date. After everything, he still kept most things about himself to himself. He'd been called a hooligan and a loud-mouth and a delinquent for all of his fighting and arguing and loud protestation. But none of that was really about  _him._  Not directly at least.

"No more."

"Yes, ma'am." She kissed him sweetly. "You should know then, that I play a mean wooden crate."

"What?"

"Wooden crate. Turn it on its side and sit on it, smack it like a drum. Couldn't really go out drinkin' and dancin', but I could help everyone else do it if I gave 'em a good beat."

"Is that where you learned the valley song?"

He nodded and she sank down to let him hold her. "Bars in the neighborhood with Bucky. Coffee klatches after Mass with Ma before that. My hearin' was crap, but I could  _feel_  the music that way."

***

Bucky walked through the market with Jones, catching up casually as they listened in on conversations going on around them. It wasn't exactly Jones' neighborhood, but he went through the market often enough to know his way around, to know if there was a face that didn't belong. A flash of red caught Bucky's attention just at the edge of his peripheral vision. He turned toward the butcher's counter to listen to the rapid argument between the customer and the man in the apron, the Russian words blurring together at the edges. He was rusty. He listened harder. "Natalia?"

She flinched and turned around cautiously. "James? What are you doing here?"

He gestured to Jones, "Just visiting a friend. You speak Russian?" She nodded. "You live around here?"

"Yes, with my Aunt." He nodded, he remembered that much. "Do you speak Russian?"

"Not a word."

She smiled brightly, "I'll have to teach you." The butcher slapped a package wrapped in paper and twine down on the counter. She thanked him haughtily and put it into the basket on her arm. "Are we still on for this evening?"

"Yeah, a'course."

She turned her smile on Jones, "Pleasure to meet you." She walked away, turning one to look at them over her shoulder.

"What the hell was that?" Bucky cringed and told Gabe how he'd met the girl.

***

"SHIELD is on to you--us."

"Makes no matter."

"Barnes and one of the others, one of the Howlers, they were here. Claimed not to understand anything, but they were clearly casing the neighborhood. And we already know they’re both fluent in a handful of languages."  Natalia had pushed her groceries off on some old woman who appeared to be in need of them so that she could follow the two men. "From what the other one said, where they went, SHIELD knows more than we anticipated after the transmissions were cut. You need to act now or not at all."

"Be here with the car at dismissal." She told Natalia the cross street that would allow her access to the backside of the school.

***

They spent the afternoon lazing in each other's arms, responsibilities be damned.

Steve did get up off the couch a few times. Once to poke at the modest flame in the fireplace, just enough to take the bite out of the autumn afternoon's air. Once to take the laundry out of the washer and put a new load in. Peggy helped him load the drier and peg things up onto the line across the beams in the basement ceiling.

She wanted to ask him a thousand questions. Tell him a thousand things.

She satisfied herself with comfortable silence and occasional kisses and touches and the warmth of his body beside hers.

She didn't know where to start. "I suppose one of us should get up and start dinner. The children will be home soon." She glanced toward the clock on the mantel. They still had another few precious minutes alone together before Rebecca would be ringing the bell with Lilly in tow. James would be home from spending the afternoon at his boxing class at the YMCA in time to eat.

"We could take 'em out."

Peggy shook her head. She didn't want them to be riled up on a school night and an outing for dinner _always_ riled them up. She settled herself down to watch the flickering flame and pick at the pilling on the sleeve of the worn-in sweater she was wearing, large and red and meant for Steve who busied himself combing his fingers through her hair and weaving it into a loose braid at the nape of her neck. The phone rang, dispelling their little oasis.

"Hello?" Rebecca sounded out of breath.

"Yes?"

"Peggy! Oh my gosh, Peggy. I--I'm so sorry!"

"What's wrong?" Steve stepped into the kitchen, brow furrowed with concern. Rebecca was babbling into the receiver quicker than Peggy could catch her words. It sounded very much like the woman was in tears. "Rebecca, slow down! What about Lillian? Barnes was supposed to ask you to fetch her from school. Is there a problem? I can go get her, it's not an issue if something's come up."

"No! Peggy, she... she's gone. Lilly is gone."

"What are you talking about?"

"She's missing."

Peggy twisted Steve's wrist around to look at his watch. "You're only a few minutes late, she'll be in the main office rather than on the steps. It's really alright." Steve frowned deeply. Peggy's gut tightened and flipped. She didn't want to believe what she'd heard. He took the phone gently out of her hands.

"Bec, what's going on?" He paused, listening closely. "Has Sister Alice called the police yet? Alright. We'll be right there. Just stay at the school, okay?" He placed the phone carefully in the cradle and left the kitchen, his steps slow and measured as he moved toward the stairs.

Peggy felt like time was slowing down around her, like she was swimming through molasses and breathing it in and drowning in it, like her heart was going to beat out of her chest or stop all together.

"Steve?"

Had she spoken aloud?

"Steve?" She made a conscious effort to make her lips move. "Steve!" Her shriek echoed through the house. He came back down the stairs, his shoes on his feet, hers in his hands. Peggy found herself looking at his knees. When had she sat down on the floor? "No."

He gripped her forearms and helped her up. She balanced herself against his shoulder while she shoved her feet into her shoes. He was too calm, frighteningly so. The muscles in his jaw clenched and rolled as he looked dead ahead at the road while he drove to Saint Francis. There was a police car outside, an officer pacing on the sidewalk. She heard him ask if they were Captain and Mrs. Rogers, the missing girl's parents. Steve answered in the affirmative and they followed the officer into the school and through to the main office where Rebecca, the secretary, the principal and the monsignor were congregated.

Rebecca looked an utter wreck.

Peggy felt as though the room was full of fog. "Where is my daughter?"

Sister Alice looked toward the monsignor, the secretary looked down at her hands.

Steve shook his arm out of her grasp. "She asked you a question."

"Captain Rogers, we--" The priest's robes swished and fluttered as Steve seized him by the front of his cassock and shoved him against the closed door to the principal's office. Rebecca sobbed loudly, the secretary and principal screeched. The officer pulled at the back of Steve shirt and arms, trying to get him to release the man.

"I don' wanna hear any  _fuckin'_  excuses." He placed his face a breath away from the priest's, speaking as though every word was punctuated. "We trusted you. We trusted you!" He drew in a shaky breath. "You said you could keep our children safe! You understood!" He gently placed the man back on his feet, shrugging off the officer and his shouted threats of arrest. "What happened? Who took her?"

The officer followed them back to their home. He wanted a recent photograph of Lilly, something of hers to assist the dogs they were bringing to the school to search the grounds even though Peggy thought it highly unlikely they'd find anything useful, it wasn't as if it was an uncommon place for her to be walking around in. Rebecca rode to the brownstone with them in the car.

"Stop apologizing."

"But, Peggy, I--"

"It is not your fault. Stop apologizing." She kept her eyes forward, afraid to meet the younger Barnes sibling's gaze. "Tell me again what happened."

"I was just a moment or two late, there were still a few children on the steps with the other teacher. She told me that Miss Wood had taken Lilly back inside to use the bathroom. I waited and waited and they never came back out so I thought she might be in the office but she  _wasn't_. She wasn't there, she was just  _gone_."

"I shall call the office when we get home. Then Rebecca shall call her husband."

"Call Buck."

"Why?"

"Just call 'im." Steve's bottom lip disappeared into his mouth for a moment and reappeared. He stopped at a traffic light and blinked rapidly while he waited.

***

"Miss Wood? I have'ta use the lav-ah-tory."

The child swung her foot back and forth across the cement step. Dottie had assured the sister who usually dismissed the children in the class she was in charge of that she was confident she could send the right child home with the right guardian. The woman reminded her for probably the thousandth time that Lillian Rogers was to go home with absolutely no one who was not on a pre-approved list.

"Of course, Lilly." She turned to the other teacher, a mousy, skittish thing, and pawned the rest of the children off on her to be dismissed. They were of no consequence.

This child, progeny of Captain America--the Super Soldier--and Agent Peggy Carter;  _this_  child was of great consequence.

She was valuable.

She'd either make a beautiful addition to the Academy or she would be used to improve upon the students that were already there. Surely, a child of such interesting parentage would have something of value running through her veins. They had enough scientists and researchers on the payroll to isolate that value.

Dottie smiled as the child took her hand and allowed herself to be taken inside the building. "Where're we goin'?" She led the girl down the hall toward the teachers' lounge. She explained that the restroom attached to the suite that housed the kindergarten in the basement was just too far. "Oh. Okay." So beautifully trusting. So pliant.

She would be easy to teach.

The girl was eager to please and resistant to backing down in a conflict. She would fit into the group nicely.

Dottie rolled her eyes and glanced at the clock over the door in the lounge while she waited for the child to finish. Finally the water in the sink began to run and then she appeared once more, tentatively drying her hands on the front of her shirt. "I can't reach the towels." She frowned and Dottie assured her it was alright as she led her back into the hallway.

Rather than head toward the front door, she turned toward the back. There was a service door for emergency exiting and janitorial staff. Natalia would be waiting down the block with the car.

"Where're we goin'?" She would need to be broken of that habit of questioning things.

The car approached cautiously. The now sleeping child was laid in the back seat. Natalia would wait at the rendezvous point and then stay behind to monitor the situation while Dottie continued on. She watched the car drive away and smirked down at the schoolbag in her hand before tossing it casually into the dumpster and heading back inside. She stopped in the office, assuring the secretary that all of the children had been delivered into the proper hands. She walked briskly out the door, narrowly avoiding being seen by the woman they'd pegged as Barnes' sister and out into the afternoon sunshine.

***

"We've spoken to the teacher, Miss Wood. She says she dismissed the girl to you. Described ya to a tee."

"No!"

The chief had quickly gotten involved when he learned the details of who the incident involved. He'd decided that it would be best to keep things quiet, take statements and question the woman who was supposed to be picking the child up at the house. The police cars were kept away from the brownstone, the block entirely. Plain-clothes detectives did the questioning.

Bucky'd burst through the door looking like a snarling wolf, demanding answers. He really did love Steve's kids like they were his own blood. The detective had questioned Rebecca over and over again, at one point even insisting that she'd had something to do with Lilly going missing. Bucky held his sister close as she sobbed and shouted back at the detective that he was an incompetent asshole.

"Where's yer son, Captain Rogers?"

He was struggling to keep his composure, overwhelmed by the conflicting desires to either fall to pieces or launch his own search. "He-he's at the Y."

"Y'sure about that?"

"Yes."

Peggy gripped his knee hard. "Steve."

Sitting behind the wheel of the Willys Wagon, he drew in ragged breaths. It was something like having a panic attack and an asthmatic episode all at once. Steadying himself, he pulled away from the curb and headed in the direction of the recreational center. He found James lingering in the hallway outside the locker rooms, curls wet from the shower dangling artfully across his forehead while he chatted up some girl. A little flare of pride crept up behind his fury and despair. "James!"

The boy flinched, eyes wide. The girl blushed and ducked into the ladies locker room. "Pop! What's wrong?" Steve pulled him close and sucked in air, tears prickling his eyes. "Pop?"

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. We need to go home."

"Can I get my stuff?"

"Yeah, you can get yer stuff. Quickly."

Having James in the wagon made him feel safe. It wasn't a coincidence he'd chosen a Willys as the family car. It was a jazzed up military transport. Solid and trusty. Safe. No one could snatch James from his arms while he was sitting in the passenger's seat the way it appeared they'd snatched Lilly from the school that was supposed to be fortress and haven.

"Pop, what's wrong?"

"I'll explain when we get inside, okay?"

While Steve was gone, a handful of SHIELD agents had arrived. They were comparing notes with the detectives, gathering their own information. Sousa sat quietly at the breakfast table with Bucky and Rebecca, listening carefully to her story, as short as it was, speaking in soft tones and taking thorough notes. He always was the best at the boots-to-the-ground police work out of the bunch that had started out with the SSR. Knew how to trust his intuition rather than just strong-arm every situation. Peggy hugged James tightly when he came through the door.

A detective remained at the house all evening, making himself scarce but easily reached. Steve felt like he was watching someone else's life happen, like a program on the television. Agent Sousa and Bucky made dinner that Steve ate but didn't taste. He hovered close to James while he sat in the office doing his homework, feeling the need to go by and touch his shoulder or ruffle his hair every so often just to make sure he was still really there. He listened to Rebecca's repeated apologies until her husband came by to retrieve her. Peggy conferred with Sousa between her own sanity-checks in the office, trying to draw connections between the recent chatter and the kidnapping.

"Carter, I don't think it's right that you're workin' this. Yer too close to it."

"Daniel, I need to." Steve came up behind her as she stood after poking at the fireplace. He wrapped his arms around her and settled his face into the crook of her neck. She laced her fingers into his, her body stiffening momentarily at the intimacy in her colleague’s presence. "How is he?"

"Acting like nothin' is goin' on. I think he's tryin'a be strong fer us. Buck's with 'im, quizzin' James on his science before he goes t'bed."

"Captain Rogers--"

"Steve."

"Steve, Peggy and I were tryin' ta make a list of people who might have a problem with y'guys?" Steve lifted his head and took the pad of paper that Sousa offered him, sitting down on the couch opposite. The list was long, two pages full of enemy operatives, political opponents, and host of others. It had been years since Steve had been on an honest to goodness mission, since bright and bold  _Captain America_ had really been needed, necessary, or helpful in the field with the world as it was. Seemed like Peggy had racked up quite the tally in that time.

"I can't think'a anyone else. Unless ya wanna know the names of every jackass that I picked a fight with in a back alley." He grinned weakly and handed the pad back to Sousa. "I feel like this is my fault." Peggy turned and gave him an incredulous look. "I had such an off feelin' and I ignored it. Shouldda kept Lilly home. Or at least picked 'er up myself." He clenched his jaw and did his best to hold everything in. "Instead I was here bein' selfish and neglectin' my responsibilities."

" _What?_ " Peggy looked horrified. Sousa seemed to not be able to decide whether to leave the room or referee the impending argument. "Spending a day with your wife is not being selfish or neglecting your responsibilities. You work from home so that our children can have a parent at their disposal. So that... so that I can continue to do my job, what I do best. You do everything reasonably in your power to provide for our family. Neither of us could have known what was going to happen today whether you had a bad feeling or not. You cannot blame yourself for what’s happening." She clenched her jaw and drew in a shaking breath, her face flushing with color.

Steve stood at the sound of the door opening and their detective shadow started speaking in hushed tones. The lead detective came into the living room with Agent Thompson. Jack's brow was heavily creased, "I think you two better sit down fer this."

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose as he steeled himself. "This is... this is completely unorthodox but considerin' who y'are, I feel like complete transparency is the order'a the day. Peggy's fingers gripped his. She nodded at the detective to continue. "We went ta check out this teacher a little more closely, Miss Wood, since Mrs. Proctor was so insistent that she was lyin'." Steve tensed, Peggy squeezed tighter. "Got 'er address from the school. Turns out the place is a vacant building. No sign any'un's lived there in years." Steve's stomach flipped over. "Can either of ya give us anythin' else ta go on? We don't even know what this dame looks like."

"Give me fifteen minutes." Steve took the steps two at a time up to the bedroom. He snatched the sketch he'd abandoned off of the drafting table and slapped a new sheet of paper onto it. Peggy's tentative steps sounded behind him. "I know. I know this is useless. But I feel like I'm doin' somethin' ta help." She sat down on the edge of the bed, her quiet presence reassuring.

Steve put down his pencil when he thought the sketch of the blonde with her crocodile smile was sufficient. Peggy made a choked sound over his shoulder. " _That's_  the woman who's been substituting in Lilly's class?" Steve nodded, that was the woman he'd met. He never forgot a face. "Steve, that's Dottie Underwood."

He felt chilled to the bone. “Why do I know that name?” He knew why. He couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it.

She gripped his shoulder, red lacquered nails digging into the meat of it. “Back… right after the War. Fennhoff and she— _oh God._ ”

“She was the Widow. The one who escaped.”

“Yes.” Peggy picked the sheet of sketch paper up off of the drafting table. She studied it closely. “You are positive this is what Ms. Wood looks like?” Steve bristled, spitting out an affirmative answer through his teeth as he glared down at the smudged test sketches of the Invisible Girl that were beneath the page Peggy held. “Dottie should be in her forties. If this is her, she hasn’t aged a day. We may be in much farther over our heads than we thought.”

He snorted with derision, “What do you think she found some kind of fountain of youth? Maybe she’s been frozen all this time, preserved.” He could taste the bitterness of his words as they danced out over his tongue. It was a defense mechanism and a poor one. He could count on one hand the number of times Bucky _hadn’t_ called him out on it over the years.

Peggy gave him an incredulous look and turned on her heel. “Daniel? Jack!” The stairs creaked as she rushed down them. Steve took a breath and followed, his pace more sober.

***

Bucky sat beside the open window, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked the smoke from his cigarette in. He paused, flicking ashes into the tray balanced on the sill, and then blew the lazy stream from between his pursed lips carefully outside. He watched the sidewalk, eyes scanning each odd vehicle that passed, every pedestrian.

“Please stay.” Steve looked like he was holding onto his last shred of control. “If you need to go be with Bec, I understand, I just—“

“Don’t worry about it, Punk. I’ll stay.”

He didn’t need to explain any further. He wanted Bucky to watch his six. It was an easy dance, one they’d done since they were dumb kids. It was just as natural sitting on the edge of the solidly built side table, framed photographs and watercolors carefully set aside, with the readied Colt loosely gripped in his right hand. Steve had disappeared for several long minutes, leaving Bucky standing in the middle of the living room, staring into the dying flame in the fireplace. He’d returned with his service sidearm, loaded, and passed it to him discretely while Peggy saw the detectives out the door.

She’d briefed them on who Ms. Wood actually was.

Dottie Underwood.

The original Black Widow.

Or at least, original to them. Who the hell knew how many there were? Where they were? Who they were?

That was the thing about spiders. They hid in plain sight.

Bucky envied Peggy’s inability to participate in the last excursion into Russia he and Steve went on. She’d been pregnant with Lillian, had just found out. Steve had been vibrating with joy, barely able to contain it.

That was until they’d located the Academy—one of them. There were other locations, other covers. Steve hadn’t been able to bring himself to harm the girl who attacked him, springing from the shadows and plunging her blade into his shoulder when he whipped his body around to bat away the surprise attack. And really, who could have? She was a finely tuned weapon, but she was still a child. They’d settled on subduing her—essentially, Steve holding her tightly while she fought against him—biting and snarling and scratching—and locking her in the dormitory. They were both sure she’d find her way out. Everything they knew about the girls who were trained to be Red Room agents indicated she’d probably do it before they even cleared the location. He’d been shook up.

_“How d’ya do that t’ a little girl, Buck? How?”_

_“I dunno, Steve. I don’t like it any more than you, but we have bigger things to worry about right now.”_

_“I’d die if James was ever treated like that—turned into a killer.”_

_“Good thing ‘e ain’t a girl then. They won’t want ‘im.”_

His face had dropped, the reality of Peggy’s pregnancy settling in—the future of the unborn child.

They didn’t know what they were having, hell, Carter wasn’t even showing yet.

All the same, Steve’s conviction to keep his children safe snapped into focus. Not that it wasn’t before, but he’d realized what a shitty place the world still was—how the things they’d nearly given their lives for on more than one occasion were still happening. That the world had somehow grown darker. Every desk in the classroom became one his unborn maybe-daughter could be sitting at. Every bed in the dorm—every pair of cuffs attached to them—was where she might sleep. The blood on the pavement on the outdoor training grounds was hers. He’s given his report when they got back with a distant gaze and a robotic tone. The deep cut in his shoulder had healed cleanly by the time he saw Peg and the kid again.

Next time, Bucky went alone.

“You keepin’ watch all night?” Bucky grunted in response and ground the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray. He watched Sousa settle himself against the edge of the side table, scooting the stack of frames further toward the end. “I’m only stayin’ until that police detail changes shifts.”

“They’re not so great at the whole _undercover_ thing, are they?”

“It would appear not.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Got a couple’a guys out back too, by the kitchen door.” Bucky nodded, returning his full attention to the street outside. “You need anything?”

“Nah.”

“Heard you took a little fieldtrip out to visit Jones.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm. And ya’ve got a Russian girlfriend.”

“You SHIELD people really know everyone’s business, don’t ya?”

“Not really. Just the important ones. So what’s up?”

“I was visiting a friend. Y’see, we went ta war togeth’ah.” He took a fresh cigarette out of his pack and struck a match, his face illuminated like a monster in the darkness. He breathed in, puffing and waiting for the flame to properly catch. He held the cigarette between two fingers and blew the smoke again toward the open window. “Got held as prisoners by some really twisted motherfuckers. Got put to work. Starved. Poked. Prodded. Injected. Questioned. Beat. Kinda thing that makes ya brothers.”

“You don’t really like me, do you?”

“I ain’t got any opinion on ya, Sousa. Never worked with ya before. My best friend’s kid is missin’. It’s lookin’ like she was kidnapped by an enemy operative. I’m sittin’ here with a loaded gun waitin’ for ‘em to come try shit. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a little irritable.” He took another pull on the cigarette and held the smoke in his chest, relishing in the burn of it. “And she’s not my girl. Not that it’s any of yer business.”

“Sergeant Barnes, I’m not the bad guy.”

“Didn’ say y’were, _Agent_ Sousa.”

“Carter’s my friend, and my commanding officer. I’m doing everything I can.”

“Certainly don’t look like that from here.”

***

Peggy slipped into a pair of flannel pants and tugged her old, threadbare Army-issued thermal over her head. She’d left her brassiere and socks on, her boots rested beside the bed in just the right spot should she need to swing her legs out and shove them down into the shoes in a hurry. She sat down heavily on the edge of the mattress to check the magazine on her trusty old Walther. She took care of the piece, you’d never know it travelled across the world with her and saw War at home and abroad. She set it down carefully on the night table, safety engaged.

“You checked on James?”

Steve nodded. Their son had been pretending to sleep. The kid would never do well on the stage, but it was enough to make Steve leave him alone.

He felt less on edge in the knowledge that Bucky was downstairs, on guard, taking care of him—of them. It didn’t stop the angry, terrified twist of his gut or the throbbing in his head from unshed tears. He stared up at the ceiling, wondering what great evil he’d done in his life to garner this kind of Earthly punishment? Prayers itched to tumble from his lips, old comforts learned from his Ma, held onto like a lifeline in a sickbed or a trench.

_Christ be with me. Christ before me. Christ behind me. Christ in me. Above me. On my right. On my left. Christ where I lie and sit. Christ where I arise…_

The words died on his tongue before they managed to make it into open air.

They felt like a lie. Peggy turned out her lamp and sank into the mattress beside him.

“Why Lilly?”

“Because of who we are. Because Dottie hates me.”

“We… I should be out there. Looking.”

Maybe if Peggy spent more time being a mother and less time being an agent, this wouldn’t have happened. Why did she have to take that promotion? It was foolish. She wasn’t thinking about _them_ she was only thinking about—Steve felt his face and chest flush with a hot, embarrassed blush. He shouldn’t be thinking that way. None of this was her fault. It didn’t make him any less angry, though.

“Every officer and agent in the city is looking. Dottie Underwood… if she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. We need to be here for James.”

“Underwood could be halfway across the Atlantic by now.”

“There’s nothing to indicate she’s left the city.”

“There’s nothin’a indicate she stayed any longer’n it took to _take our child_.”

“Steve, please—“

“We might never get her back.”

Peggy bolted upright, “Don’t you _dare._ ”

“Ma?” James’ silhouette appeared in their doorway, the light from the hallway framing him. He looked smaller than he was, his pillow clutched in his hands.

“Darling, what’s wrong?”

He stuttered and leaned back, stepping away from the door and back again, hand reaching out and hovering near the light switch as if he could slink back in the darkness and retreat to his room as if he hadn’t been there. Steve sat up and swung his feet around to the side of the bed, knocking his own boots aside in the process.

“Ah, Uncle James is still here.”

“Yes, he is.”

“He’s sittin’ in the hall downstairs. It’s late.”

“He’s keepin’ watch, kiddo. I asked ‘im to stay. You okay?” James shook his head, continuing to hesitate in the threshold. “You wanna come in?” The light from the hall fell against the side of his face, illuminating the uncertain twist to his mouth. Steve threw the comforter back, “C’mon.”

“Can I leave the light on?”

“Absolutely.”

He climbed into bed between his parents with as much dignity as he could. He settled his pillow very precisely, eyes sweeping across the room, falling momentarily on the firearm on the night table, taking note of the odd selection of nightclothes and the readied shoes. “I’m worried about Tiger Lilly.”

Peggy offered a watery smile. She swept his bed-messed curls away from his forehead and pressed her lips to it. “We all are, darling.”

“How c’n we just... _go t’bed_?” Steve raised a brow, looking at Peggy from the corner of his eye as he tucked the comforter back around them. “I wanna look for her. Why aren’t we lookin’?” Peggy eased him down, a gently firm hand on his shoulder.

“The police are looking. And SHIELD.”

“But _you’re_ SHIELD. You and Pop and Uncle James and…”

“My darling, the best thing we can do is to be here to protect you.”

“Yer Ma’s right.” Steve settled down on his back, trying to arrange himself as casually as possible, trying to relax the tension in his body. “Try’da get some sleep.”

Hours later, James’ peaceful if labored breathing changed. He woke, tucking himself more closely to Steve. “Pop?”

“Yeah?”

“You awake?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m scared.”

“Me too, mo leanbh.” He turned onto his side, laying a protective arm over his son. Peggy picked her head up quietly peering at them in the semidarkness. The curtains were drawn tight against prying eyes, the light from the hall cut across the room and left harsh shadows in its wake. “We all are.”

Peggy seemed to drift against her will sometime just before dawn, her lips pursed and her brows drawn together in distress. Steve crept down the stairs as quietly as he could, every sound his movement made seeming to echo through the house. Bucky looked up at him as Steve padded down the stairs. He’d dragged a chair from the kitchen into the hall. Sitting where he was, he had a decent view of the front windows and the door and he’d have a good vantage to take care of anyone trying to come in through the kitchen door.

“You sleep at all, punk?”

“Not a wink.”

“Y’can’t run on no fuel, Steve. How many times did we have ta force y’da _not_ keep watch? T’not give away yer goddamned rations? Cut the bullshit.” He looked down at the gun in his hand and decocked it casually. Steve raised a brow and he shrugged. “Milkman spooked me.” He stood and Steve picked the chair up to set back down at the breakfast table. “You expect to be of any kinda use when we go out there if yer sleep deprived?”

Steve put his hands down on the tabletop and stared down at it, shoulders hunched, back to Bucky while he leaned against the counter. “How’m I suppose’ta sleep when my… when… when my _baby_ is somewhere out there with some fucking… some fucking lunatic with a vendetta? You’ve seen the same things I have. You _know_ how much those people care about _life_.” Spittle flew from between his clenched teeth. His arms shook with the effort it took to not splinter the tabletop. “When I’ve fucking failed at the most basic part of parenting—keeping yer goddamn kid safe. James is terrified’n I dunno what to tell ‘im. _I’m terrified_.” He took a great heaving breath, a violent tremble shaking his body as he did. “And my marriage is falling apart.”

“The fuck you talkin’ about?”

“Peg… Peg and I, we—“

“What? ‘Cause the two’a you had a little fight last night?”

“You heard?” Bucky stepped up beside him, squeezed his shoulder. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling with James’ boney elbows pressed into his gut had given him a new clarity, had given him the emptiness he needed to look back at the last several years—since Peggy had gotten pregnant with Lillian. All of the non-fights. All of the too-tired-to-talk evenings. All of the distance that Steve staying home and Peggy effectively running a covert government agency had created. All of the times he wanted so badly to be out in the field and all of the times he absolutely couldn’t be because protecting his family meant more than just throwing a shield or shooting a gun or kicking someone’s teeth in. All of the times they’d fallen into bed instead of figuring out what was wrong because fucking through a problem was easier than fighting about it or talking about it—because fucking felt good in the end and fighting just left you feeling empty and angry. All of the things they really didn’t know about each other. Things left unsaid. Things they ignored. “It’s… it’s more’n that.”

“C’mere.” Steve buried his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck, feeling all of five years old, sobbing openly, body shaking, hands fisting in the front of Bucky’s shirt. A muscled arm held him tight around the shoulders. “No one expects ya’da be _Captain America_ all the time. You’ll figure shit out. Both of ya. She’s worth figurin’ it out fer. What the two’a you got here is worth figurin’ it out.”

“I know.”

Someone behind them cleared their throat. Steve pried himself away from Bucky to see Peggy standing in the doorway, bathrobe cinched tight around her waist, lack of sleep painted in purples under her eyes. “Will you stay for breakfast, Barnes?”

Bucky straightened himself out, took the gun out of the back of his pants where he’d tucked it and placed it down on the counter. “Nah, I gotta head into work. Somethin’ came up yesterday, didn’t get done what needed to. Some’un call? If anything changes?”

“Of course. Thank you.” He paused to embrace Peggy firmly before slipping by her.

“Good luck on that science test, bud.” He ruffled James’ hair, the boy paused on the stairs, before grabbing his jacket and heading out the door.

***

Bucky sat down heavily at his regular spot at the counter in the diner. “Usual?”

“Yeah.” The waitress put down a mug full of steaming, fresh coffee in front of him. It was thick as mud, bitter and earthy, warming him from the inside and going miles toward relaxing the tension in his shoulders.

“Mr. Barnes?”

“Told y’a thousand times, Gay, it’s just Bucky.” He put on his best approximation of a smile for the waitress who appeared in front of him. He nodded in thanks when the older woman who was taking care of him placed a plate full of eggs and potatoes down in front of him.

She slid a napkin across the countertop. “That young woman you were in here with? The redhead? She was in here last night. Waited a while, said you had a date.” Bucky sighed and swiped his hand down his face. “She said if you came in to give you that.” The napkin had a phone number scrawled across it in elegant handwriting.

“I’m sorry again, about that coffee cup.”

“It’s no problem.” She smiled and went back to the table she’d been taking care of, plates of food from the kitchen window balanced on her arms.

He couldn’t focus at all in the office. He listened to the men he managed, listened to the union rep. None of it sank in. His mind was everywhere else. Tracking what movements Underwood could have made, how she could have gotten away with Lilly—she’d have put up a fight if she knew what was happening. It was a good plan, coming in as a teacher like that, building up just enough trust. His mind was with Steve and Peggy and James, wracked with sympathetic guilt over the whole thing, over the fact that he couldn’t do anything to help. His mind was with Becca, probably still beating herself up even though none of it was her fault and it was completely by chance that she’d been caught up in the whole mess.

“Marge?” His secretary poked her head into his office. The numbers in his ledger had gone completely fuzzy. “Clear my schedule, would ya? The guys can handle things without me. I’m not feelin’ too hot and we’ve got kind of a family emergency goin’ on—“

“No problem, sir.”

He was halfway back to the diner before he realized where he was going. He dialed the number on the napkin when he got there. “Natalia?”

“James. I was hoping you’d call.”

“You wanna grab lunch?”

“Absolutely.”

By dinnertime they were in his bed, sticky with sweat, skin rosy and prickling with sensation, sheets tangled around their bodies.

“I don’t normally do this.” Natalia laughed and turned over to rest her chin on his chest, her fingers playing with the hair collected over his sternum.

“Why not? You’re not so bad at it.”

“I meant, y’know, with someone I hardly know. First date, all that.”

“Hm. Then let’s call lunch our second date instead. Does that make you feel better?”

Bucky laughed and combed his fingers back through his hair. “There’s a lot goin’ on right now.”

“I get the feeling you want to talk about it.”

“Yes and no. My, ah, my niece… my best pal’s kid. She’s missin’.”

“Oh, no!”

“Everybody feels like it’s their fault. It’s not though. Circumstances beyond anybody’s control.”

“Shouldn’t you all be out looking for her then? Is she small?” He nodded. “A little girl all alone, lost in this city? She could be hurt.”

“The, ah, the police, some other people who’re lookin’, they asked us all ta stay out of it.”

“Why on earth would they do that?”

“Long story.” Natalia pressed her lips down against his skin, the contact against the chafed flesh from the straps of his prosthetic both soothing and irritating. “She’s not a runner, some’un took ‘er. They think they know who. It’s a big deal.”

Why was he telling her any of this?

She leaned into his touch when he brought his left arm up, holding her against him with it as much as he could. She didn’t recoil at the feel of the scarred flesh of the incomplete limb. She propped herself up, looking down at him, fiery curls bouncing as they fell down around her face and shoulders. “Do they think they’ll find her? Bring her home?”

“I dunno. No one really wants ta think about the alternative.”

She caressed his face with her elegant fingers and kissed him gently.

***

“They know.”

“Are they coming?”

“A matter of time.”

Natalia could see the smile creep across Dottie’s face in her mind’s eye. She’d taken the child and left quickly. They’d be well on their way back to the Red Room by now. Dottie had spoken with their superiors before they left. They’d first try to assimilate the child into the program. “Wouldn’t you just love to see the look on Carter’s face?” Natalia had stayed behind to gather intelligence and report back on whatever movement Carter and Rogers made. “Have they made you yet?”

“No.”

_“You know practically everythin’ about me and I still know practically nothin’ about you, Natalia.” His lips had spread into a genuine smile over the top of his coffee mug._

_“There’s not much to know.” She’d shrugged and placed her utensils down on the edge of her place. “I’m not half as interesting as you are.”_

_Barnes rolled his eyes. “Let’s start with what you were doin’ all the way out here in Brooklyn to see a pi’cher when you live in Manhattan? Why make the trek?”_

_“I was supposed to meet a girlfriend. Plans changed, so I decided to treat myself.”_

_Later, pulling her clothes back on under his scrutiny, she’d felt oddly light. “So what kinda dancer are ya?” Standing there in her camisole and drawers, she pulled a leg up behind herself, stretching as if she meant to touch her head with her toes. “Godalmighty…”_

_“Ballet. I’ve been preparing for an audition at Julliard, that’s why I came to New York.”_

_“That don’t look like ballet’da me.” She laughed and dropped her leg and turned a lazy pirouette._

“Good. Maybe your assignment will change. A good undercover agent is a valuable thing, a good asset. Karpov was interested what you had to say about Barnes. Zola’s files were interesting. Right time… maybe we’ll turn him too.” Dottie laughed. The sound was musical, light. More the sweet young woman than the deadly covert operative. Natalia saw how Carter could have been fooled all those years ago. Dottie had a certain earnestness about her when she wasn’t focused with singular intent on whatever mission she was on—whatever mission she’d created for herself. “Man like that? He was devil during the war. Sniper, ruthless hand-to-hand… Carter managed to keep him in even after his arm was ripped off.” She sighed as if pleased with whatever image she was painting in her head. “Imagine it—the golden child and the Sergeant, working for us, against them. Wouldn’t that just be a gas?”

***

“Oh! Agent Carter!” Rose sprung up out of her seat, tethered by her headset until she yanked it off. “We’ve just heard!” Peggy allowed herself to be embraced. “Is there anything I can do? Anything we can do?”

Peggy smoothed the front of her suit. “Just your job, ladies, same as always.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat and watched as Steve accepted the sympathies of the other women at the switchboard. James pressed himself close, thrilled to be ditching school—especially on the day of an examination—but unnerved by the circumstances.

“We’ve expanded our ears-to-the-ground operations. Anything suspicious is being filtered directly through my station.”

“Thank you, Rose, you’ve always been such an asset.”

“Peggy?” She turned, surprised by the informal address. “We’re really doing everything we can.”

“I know.”

“Mr. Stark is here. He came in just a few minutes ago with Agents Morita and Cohen.” She dropped her voice lower, “We’re expecting either communication or a visit of a more… _executive_ variety. I don’t know much, I’m not as well versed in their lingo as I probably should be, but the call came through to the secure line.”

“Thank you.” Steve stepped up beside her, offering Rose a watery smile and putting his hand affectionately against Peggy’s hip. The elevator ride was tense. James shifted his weight from one foot to the other, unable to keep still. “Darling, you can get comfortable in my office, yes?” He nodded. They’d offered to let him stay at home. Jones was more than happy to come over to the house and keep watch, they could pick up where they left off on last summer’s German lessons. The boy had discovered a knack for language and was drinking up everything he could get from anyone who knew something other than English. James had blanched and asked to come along, unwilling to let either of his parents out of his sight.

“Can I use your typewriter?”

“Of course, what for?”

“I’ve got a report due end’a the week.”

“Whatever you need.”

James settled himself at Peggy’s desk, one of the younger members of the staff keeping him company, a code breaker who showed some significant promise and a passion for comic books that matched James’s. All of the office windows were shut, blinds drawn. They weren’t going to leave themselves open to another attack on their own turf.

“What do we know?”

“Not a lot more. Sent a couple’a uni’s out to interview the other teacher—Bogart? She ain’t out sick.” Thompson slapped a file down on the table, crime scene photographs, big and glossy, slid out. “By the looks of it, she’s been dead a while, at least as long as our Miss Wood’s been substitutin’.” Steve’s lip curled in disgust and he pushed the photos back into the folder.

Sousa hoisted himself up out of his chair, “After I left your place last night, I went over to the school. Found this in the dumpster.” He pulled the parachute pack that served as a school bag out of a box marked EVIDENCE on the side table. “Looked like Lilly’s bag so I brought it in. All her stuff is in it.”

Peggy drew in a deep breath. Steve’s jaw clenched and unclenched. His thigh tensed under her grip. Peggy opened her mouth to speak when the conference room door burst open.

“Pegs! Stevie!” Howard’s jaunty attitude was grating given the current situation. “Can ya explain why I just got myself dragged across the country, away from a be-you-tee-full dame in a bikini by Agent Frowny Face here?” Morita made an exasperated expression and pushed into the room with Cohen behind him.

“Y’could have a little more decorum, Stark.” Daniel shook his head and sank back down into his seat across from Peggy and Steve.

“Well nobody is tellin’ me a damned thing. I dunno how I was supposed to get any kind’a useful intel from Anton if I couldn’t tell ‘im what the hell I was lookin’ for!”

Peggy closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself. “Howard, please.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“Lillian has been… she’s been kidnapped.”

“What?” His brows came together, his moustache turned down with the deep frown that settled over his mouth. “What the hell could Anton—oh my God.”

“Ding ding ding! Folks, I think he’s got it!” Jack threw his arms up as if in celebration, Jim shot him a look that could kill.

“Shut the fuck up, Thompson.” The tiniest of smiles curled at the corner of Steve’s mouth as Jack gaped at Morita.

“Underwood. She’s back. What about Fennhoff?”

“Still under lock and key.”

“So all she was here for, far as we know, was the kid?” There was a collective nod. “Well let’s find ‘er then!”

“That would be easier if she wasn’t a spider—if the people she came into contact with didn’t keep turnin’ up dead or missin’ or just not knowin’ anything useful.”

They worked well past dinnertime, trying to locate Underwood’s base of operations. Jones came in to give what he had to offer from his impromptu visit with Barnes. Peggy bristled at the flagrant disregard for her wishes and orders—as Steve’s wife and as the superior officer at the agency. She let it roll off of her shoulders as best she could. Wasn’t that why she loved him? Because he did what he thought was right rather than what he’d been ordered to do?

That was what she told herself.

The room fell mostly silent while the odd assembly tried to reason through whatever steps Dottie had made and try to predict those she would be making. Nervous eyes occasionally slid toward Steve and Peggy where they sat hunched over stacks of the most recent intelligence reports out of Russia. Steve glanced over his shoulder toward the window into Peggy’s office where James was describing something with enthusiastic hand motions. He laced his fingers into Peggy’s and squeezed.

The heavy sound of typewriter keys engaging and mallets slapping against paper broke through the tense silence.

Peggy gripped Steve’s hand tighter and turned her attention toward the Leviathan messaging device. Morita was sitting closest to it where it sat on the table in the back of the room that normally held coffee service. He leaned in and looked at what had been printed.

HEY THERE PEGGY!

The keys began to spring to life again.

DID YOU MISS ME? I MISSED YOU.

NEVER PAID YOU BACK FOR THAT TERRIBLE BUMP ON MY HEAD.

LILLIAN IS JUST TOO MUCH. ABSOLUTE DOLL.

Morita read each message as it came through. Peggy felt the gallon of coffee in her stomach rise up the back of her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut, lashes clumping together with moisture. She couldn’t lose her composure in front of her men, not when there were personalities like Thompson in the mix. “Stop, Jim, please.”

Steve’s jaw clenched and rolled. His nostrils flared. The heavy blush of anger swept up his neck and into his face. His grip on her hand became painful.

WHY ARE ALL THE BLINDS CLOSED? IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL EVENING.

Isadore sprang out of his seat. He grabbed several men and they raced out the door on the silent direction to check the building across the street.

Peggy pulled her hand away from Steve’s and went to the typewriter. “Where is she?”

WITH ME.

“Bring her back. No one has to know.”

WHAT WOULD THE FUN IN THAT BE?

IS THIS PEGGY? I HOPE IT IS.

“Yes.”

LET’S CATCH UP! SEEMS A LOT HAS CHANGED SINCE OUR LAST VISIT.

STILL FRIENDLY WITH ANGIE? SHE WAS A HOOT.

“What do you want?”

TO HURT YOU.

“Why?”

BECAUSE I CAN.

Steve’s presence behind her was comforting, his physical bulk shielding her from the rest of the room and all of the eyes in it. His big, warm hand came to rest against her waist. He seemed to be schooling himself into a steady breathing pattern, his free hand clenched into a fist at his side.

UH OH WHERE’D YOU GO?

“Is she ok?”

OF COURSE.

“I need some kind of assurance.”

“Please.”

Steve swept Peggy’s hands aside and typed. Isadore’s voice came over the radio, the building was clear. No Dottie. “Tell us something only she knows.”

HER PAPA CALLS HER A NAME. The line that followed was a butchered but recognizably phonetic spelling of _mo leanbh_.

“Not specific enough.” There was a pause, painfully long though really only moments.

HER LAST MEAL AT HOME WAS PEANUT BUTTER AND BANANAS. HOW CUTE.

Steve’s strangled, choking sob was all Peggy needed for confirmation. At least the information meant that Lillian might yet be okay. “Why Lillian?”

SHE’S VALUABLE.

The many implications of that statement raced through Peggy’s mind. Steve punched at the keys with his index fingers, she thought he might break the device. “YOU WILL NOT WIN.”

ALREADY HAVE.

YOU TAKE CARE NOW, PEG.

They waited. And waited. No further messages came through. Howard burst into a flurry of motion, demanding access to the device to determine where the transmission was coming from.

“It’s no use Howard. These things are mostly out of commission, Leviathan—the Red Room—they don’t use them anymore. She probably only did it because she knew we had one.”

“Where would the other half of the set be?’

“Russia, probably. If she was on a private craft, something Leviathan engineered, perhaps something based off of your tech, Howard—there’s been more than enough time for her to reach home base.” It wasn’t an accusation. A simple statement. _Midnight Oil_ wasn’t the only thing Leviathan and Fennhoff had managed to get their hands on. Small things, familiar designs, had popped up here and there in the years since the entire debacle had happened.

“Then how’d she know the blinds were closed?”

***

“Every place she could have been got searched top to bottom. Dottie Underwood was not anywhere near the office when those transmissions came through.”

“Then she has to have a partner. She wasn’t working alone the last time she was here, it wouldn’t be unusual. Do we know if she’s really the one calling the shots?”

Rebecca had turned up at their door with a backseat full of covered dishes. She marched them up the front steps and into the dining room one by one, pushing past the agitated officer guarding the front door and ignoring Bucky’s protestations.

“You should be home with your kids, Bec. You don’t have to do this! You’ve got no reason to feel guilty like this!”

“James Buchannan Barnes, don’t you dare tell me what I’ve got a reason to feel or not to feel. Ma’s at home with the kids, they’ve been fed and their schoolwork is done. The very least that I can do for Peg and Steve is make sure they’re well fed. It’s one less damned thing they’ve got to think about!”

Officers came and went, questioning and re-questioning everyone in the house, reviewing statements, casting suspicion and doubt on Rebecca, throwing barbs at Steve and Peggy and the quality of their parenting. They were drained, physically and emotionally. James was nervous, pacing and trying to listen to what was going on, repeatedly ushered back to the office or his bedroom and out of the line of fire.

The solidness of Peggy’s shoulders under his hands and her grip on his wrist kept him from launching himself over the couch at the officer who spoke.

_“It’s not enough.”_

“I don’t understand what you expect us to do, Captain Rogers. We’re not…” the officer threw his hand up in defeat. “We’re not like the superheroes you doodle. We have to actually do real police work. You SHIELD people aren’t getting any further!”

The quality of the rage that bubbled up inside of him was only something he’d ever remembered feeling during the War. The audacity of the things that were said, the accusations made over the course of the evening were too much. The officer was lucky that James and Bucky appeared at the edge of the room. James rubbed his eyes, exhaustion plastered over his face. “Ma?” Peggy shrugged Steve’s hands away and went to embrace the boy. “What’s wrong? Did Lilly come home?”

Fat tears rolled down over Peggy’s cheeks. She buried her face in his hair, drawing in breath to completely fill her chest. “No, my darling, not yet. I just needed to see you. I’m sorry.”

“S’okay, ma.” Bucky tugged them toward the kitchen, mumbling about the last of the ice cream in the icebox and arm wrestling James for the right to it.

Rebecca’s hand fell on Steve’s, gripping the back of the couch, soft and warm and dry. She’d gotten control of herself, silently offering Steve support, her eyes imploring him to back down in the same way they did on the few occasions she was close by when he’d gotten into a fight as a kid.

Someone in the hall cleared their throat, “Captain Rogers? Can I have a word?”

Steve pulled his gaze away from the officer who’d spoken so harshly. “You alright, Becca?” She nodded and squeezed his fingers. He turned on his heel and walked out into the front hall. “Yes, officer?”

“Captain Rogers, I want this broad as badly as you do.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Last time she was in town, her and her old man used my brother and left him dead in a goddamned alley. I think I want her pretty bad.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, officer.”

He waved Steve’s robotic condolences off. “Look, I haven’t shared this with my team yet, thought you might want to know first… might be better able to follow up on the lead.”

“What lead?”

“PD and SHIELD aren’t playin’ too nicely in the sandbox, and I don’t want this to get lost in the prick measurin’ contest.” He pulled his notepad out of his pocket and consulted some of his notes. “I just came back from Jersey. Last time Underwood was here, they tried to use some planes?” Steve nodded.

“It wasn’t to get away, though.”

“Well, I figured, Russian spy on the run with a stolen kid would wan’ta get outta town as quick as possible, made a few calls. A guy at this small airport in Jersey recognized Underwood from the sketch you did. She got on a small craft early this morning. Flight plans the office had were for a jaunt across the Atlantic. Man I spoke to didn’t didn’t see anyone with her, but that doesn’t mean your girl wasn’t there.”

Steve wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that they had a solid lead on where Dottie was or horrified that she’d presumably left the country with Lilly. “When did you say?”

“Early this morning.”

So she had to be working with someone. Or just a really long shot that paid off to throw them off her scent. Steve opened the front door and motioned for Cohen to come over. He stamped out his cigarette on the railing and pitched it over the side into the garbage bin below waiting for pickup. “Tell him what you told me. Details.” The officer nodded and stepped outside to speak quietly with the SHIELD agent.

***

Peggy slammed the receiver on the secure phone in her office down just a little harder than she needed to. She’d spent the morning relaying all of the new information on the case to her superiors—shadowy positions within the upper echelons of the Allied governments that SHIELD relied on for funding and personally and support.

“Dammit!”

Steve looked at her expectantly from where he sat at Sousa’s desk, reviewing the old files on Underwood and Fennhoff. He started to rise from his seat and she put a hand up, pinching the bridge of her nose with the other and taking a steadying breath. Daniel knocked tentatively, a cup of coffee in his hands made to her preference. “Didn’t go well.”

“The understatement of a lifetime.”

“Gath’round?” Peggy nodded and accepted the cup from him, taking a long sip, uncomforted by its warmth.

“Lemmie guess,” Jack’s trademark smirk slipped over his face like a well-worn mask. “The big men don’t want you launchin’ an international incident over one kid.”

Howard insinuated himself in Steve’s most direct path toward the arrogant man. Jones gave him a disgusted look, “Thompson, seriously? You’re gonna talk like that? She’s one’a our own or at least as good as it.”

He shrugged, “I’m not going against an executive order.”

Peggy squared her shoulders and set her jaw. “I’m not asking you to. I’m not asking anyone to. Captain Rogers and I are very aware that Lillian is just one girl. We’re very aware that in the larger picture, she matters very little to the rest of the world. We realize what kind of risk is involved. When we get onto Mr. Stark’s plane this evening, we’ll be boarding as private citizens. We will be acting on our own and not with the support of any agency or government. If anything happens to us, we will not have the luxury of extraction. We are not asking any of you to join us. We are only asking that you do not attempt to stop us.”

Izzy stepped forward, “Why would any of us try to hold family back?”

Morita nodded, “We got you.”

Sousa leaned back in his chair, the spring squeaking loudly. His eyes slid from Thompson to Peggy. “I can’t say I’m up for a trip, but I’ll do what I can here.” Thompson made a disgusted sound and stormed out of the office.

Peggy turned to Gabriel when the tension broke, those who had resolved to act against orders collecting on one end of the room while the others—few in Thompson’s court, more simply conscious of job security and afraid of ruffling the feathers of the powers that be—either took the rest of the day off or collected at the opposite end, not wanting to be involved in the unsanctioned mission. No one was faulted, whatever their reasons. “Bucky, he—“

“I checked it out. She’s clean.”

“You’re positive?”

“I know what you’re thinking. I had the same suspicion, pretty Russian dancer shows up and starts wormin’ ‘er way into his good graces? But everything checks out.” The doubt must have registered on her face. “I’m as shocked as you are, Peg.”

“Alright.” She picked up her coat and slipped it over her shoulders. “You’ve got command here. We’re going back to the house to collect Barnes and James, get him someplace safe. We’ll meet you at the airfield.”

Jones nodded solemnly, “Yes, ma’am.”

Steve was stony and silent as he drove over the Brooklyn Bridge in their sturdy wagon. He stood in their bedroom when they were home, glaring at the shield hanging over the bed. “I’m not going in there as Captain America. I can’t.”

“Not unless we want to start the third World War.”

His features contorted with whatever conflicting feelings were burning through him. “I’m just Steve. I’m just Lilly’s father.”

“And I am her mother and we are going to _get her back_.” She put a hand on either side of his face and pulled him down to her. She pressed her mouth to his, the heat of anxiety and heartache and anger and confusion manifesting in the clash of teeth and lips and heaving chests. He pulled back, a thin string of saliva connecting their lips and snapping. He swiped at his chin, cheeks burning red, veins standing out in his temples and neck.

“I love you, Peggy. I’m sorry I don’t tell you that more often.” He turned away from her and opened the steamer trunk in the corner of the room. The Captain America uniform waited there, red and white and blue and bold and brash. He shoved it aside and pulled out his navy and olive SSR-issued tactical gear from beneath. Dressed and ready, they both started to leave the room, James and Barnes already waiting in the hall below. Steve doubled back and returned with the shield. “Let’s go. We’re burnin’ daylight.”

Fate seemed to be on their side, nary a red-light stopping them on their drive to Stark’s mansion. Jarvis greeted them at the door, Anna just behind him, arms open and eager to pull James into them.

“Barnes will be staying with you.”

“Of course, whatever you think is best.” They’d faught in the car until James shouted at them to stop it with his hands clamped down over his ears. Bucky wanted in. Peggy and Steve wanted him protecting James. Bucky thought the best way he could do that was by watching their six in the field.

“You think I can’t do it!” He’d shouted. “I’m not a fuckin’ invalid!” He’d walloped the side of the passenger’s seat in the back with the wood and metal limb. “You know I’m still more’n capable!”

Steve twisted in his seat. Peggy silently thanked whatever higher power existed that she’d taken the wheel for the drive to Stark’s. “Which is exactly why we want you to stay the fuck behind!” Spittle flew as the two argued. James tried to make himself as small as possible in the seat behind Steve. “Somethin’ happens t’us, you’re all he’s got!”

Barnes’ jaw worked over unformed words. James shouted. The car fell silent.

“He’s taking a tour of the perimeter, deciding on a good vantage point should something happen.” Peggy let out a breath in a rush, watching as Howard gently took the shield from Steve’s hands, explaining how some new paint he’d developed to use on it for covert operations years previous would work. The spray can clanked and rattled as he shook it vigorously and directed Steve out onto the porch to cover the vibrant concentric design. “You’re sure this is okay?” James held onto Peggy tightly. She squeezed him back.

Jarvis looked offended, “Absolutely. You are family. I shall guard him like he is my own.”

“Thank you.”

Steve was reluctant to let go of their son when it came time to leave. The shield was a dull grey shell over his back. “You go on now, mo leanbh. You can show Anna what you learned.” He looked up at the woman with the open, kind face, “He’s been practicin’ his verbs.” Jarvis’ wife guided him away gently, pulling him deeper into the house.

Barnes embraced Steve almost casually. “Come the fuck home. Bring my niece back. I haven’t had a good tellin’ off in a while.” He quickly pecked a kiss against Peggy’s cheek and moved toward the stairs. Jarvis nodded from the doorway before he closed it, a silent promise as they piled into Howard’s car.

***

Dugan, Sawyer, and Pinkerton met them on the ground.

It must have been like deja vu for Peggy. Steve felt like he’d walked into a nightmare.

The Red Room Academy had moved. They’d access the area through the same route, but it was buried deeper behind the border, harder for outside forces to locate.

“We’ve got a location on ‘em.” Dugan was far more serious than Steve ever remembered him being in all of their years as teammates and friends. “They’ve changed, grown. It’s not just a bunch’a little girls anymore—scary as they already were. They’re all grown up and there’s more comin’ through the ranks.” He clapped Steve on the shoulder, digging his thumb into the meat to rub the visible tension away. Steve continued to check his gear, grunting in appreciation by way of acknowledgment.

Colt in one holster. Old Luger he lifted off of a HYDRA agent in a pinch near the beginning of his service in the other. Shield clipped to his back, the harness snug and comforting around his shoudlers. Additional rounds in his belt. A transponder made of something much sturdier than that first one, much more compact, secured into one of the pouches around his waist. Sawyer passed something over, several small discs. Dugan continued to brief the team. Steve fingered the discs, curious.

“Don’t press that until your have to.”

“What does it do?”

“Like lightening in a coin purse. Lifted a few of ‘em of a Widow in the field, sent ‘em over to the lab to check out. Pretty easy to duplicate. You can press the button and toss it or stick it right onna the target—drops ‘em like a sack’a potatoes. Not lethal, but strong enough to give ya time to get away.” They went into a pouch as well.

“Cap?”

Peggy’s hand slipped into his. He held it like a lifeline.

The team was spread out in front of him—Howlers and old SSR and new SHIELD, men and women alike.

Rose shifted nervously beside Morita, their newly minted communications specialist. She mirrored his easy, confident stance, hands staying purposefully away from her holster when she placed them on her hips. Gabriel cast one of his radiant, full-faced smiles in her direction. Morita’d given her a crash course, told her she was a natural, wondered why she didn’t get out into the field more often—or ever.

“Who me? No Cap here. Just a guy from Brooklyn gonna get his kid back.” Peggy squeezed his hand, thumb rubbing circles against his knuckles as the team piled into their Jeeps.

Dugan chatted amiably with Gabriel and Jim, eyes sliding to the space beside Steve occupied by the woman from the switchboards rather than his right-hand man. “How’s Barnes doin’?”

“Good. Trainin’ fer the Games ‘imself instead’a just coachin’. Goin’ on blind dates with pretty ballerinas.”

“ _Where_ is Barnes?”

“Doin’ ‘is job.” Peggy explained that he’d stayed behind to keep watch over their son. Rose patted his knee and smiled.

“Well, Monty and Frenchie are waitin’ for us near the drop. They’re gonna get us a distraction to get in and then cover to get out.”

Morita’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. “Boom?” Sawyer and Dum Dum looked at each other and then back at the group, grins like little boys in a sweets shop plastered across their faces.

Getting into the compound was surprisingly easy. The team split into two groups, one that would weave their way in through the training grounds outside and the other who would clear the interior.

Divide and conquer.

As long as they weren’t on the wrong end.

Steve watched as Peggy slipped over the top edge of the wall, hoping it wasn’t the last time he’d see her.

***

Debris rained overhead in the wide, concrete training yard.

The girls were all gathered around at the edge of the sparring ring, watching the match taking place with silent interest, drinking in each tiny detail of the fight—each tiny movement, a swipe of the toe, tilt of the head—anything that would telegraph even in the most subtle way how the bout would end. The younger ones looked on the lithe blonde with a mixture of admiration and abject terror. She continued the easy, elegant sweep of her leg across the knees of her opponent as if there wasn’t dirt and rock and glass falling from the sky.

“Yelena!” The girl looked up, her attention still focused mostly in the struggling girl pinned beneath her. “Secure the asset.” Her eyes flicked from Dottie to the girl, a request for direction on whether to dispatch her or not. Dottie shook her head minutely. “Let her be an example.” Yelena shoved her down into the rough concrete, her already bloodied nose making an ugly splatter across the white stone. She’s be shunned, ostracized. She’d either learn her lesson and win the next bout or be eliminated.

Yelena took off toward the doors to the building, her neat braids bouncing solidly against her shoulders.

She clapped her hands together, the sound cracked like a gunshot through the space. “Inside! You know your instructions.” They would hide, all too green to put into the mix of a real fight, all too valuable as tools yet to be shaped, their edged honed sharp.

Dottie made her way through the courtyard and into the main building. She threw open the doors to a training room inside, smiling inwardly at the solid _thunk_ the blade the pupil inside threw made when it stuck solidly in the wall. “Niko! Time to prove yourself.” He yanked his blade from the wall, all of the swagger of a typical teenage boy radiating from him, amplified by his confidence in his own abilities. “Earn your place, Wolf.” He holstered the blade in the sheath on his thigh and slipped past her.

“You look pleased.” The man who was in charge of the boy’s training was relaxed and casual as he cleaned the implement in his hands before laying it back in its case.

Dottie laughed. “Oh, I am. Very. This is going to be fun.”

“Fun? Interesting sentiment for someone such as yourself.”

His pitying look did nothing to kill her mood. “My only regret is that I left Natalia behind. I dare say she was beginning to like Sergeant Barnes. If the cavalry’s come, I’m sure they’ve got their favorite marksman hidden away somewhere. The look on his face when he realizes just who he’s been spilling all of his most intimate secrets to would just be priceless.”

***

“I really don’t wanna fight any little girls today.”

“None of’s do, Dum.” Steve eased around the corner, clearing the corridor before he allowed his team to move forward. The corridors were darkened, red emergency lights just barely illuminating a few feet along the way. The flashlight Jones held balanced under his firearm just made the light more murky. They were relying on the clarity the serum gave Steve’s vision to make sure nothing was going to catch them off guard.

Steve heard him before Steve saw him. The lightest of scuffs of a boot against the floor. It was like the boy—because really, this was _not_ a man—materialized out of the inky shadows. The red lights cast heavy shadows across his features and made him look other-worldly. Something from Hell sent to stop them.

He was strong. He was fast.

Steve had the fleeting worry that either age or lack of field work was beginning to catch up with him.

“Stay back! Keep the hall clear!” His men were good, but they weren’t at the top of their game any more than he was. If this kid was giving him a run for his money then he didn’t want to think about the chances Dugan or Jones or the gaggle of SHIELD agents behind him who’d never been up against a Red Room agent had. He was met with a chorus of grunts and _yes, sir’s_ as he pressed forward.

It was all he could do to keep his fists moving, keep a forearm between the kid’s blows and his face or neck. Steve turned, whipping the shield off of his back and swinging it in front of his face just in time for the tip of the blade the boy produced to glance off of. Steve drove him forward, slamming him against a wall.

He laughed.

He dropped the blade, catching it in his opposite hand and driving it into the hair’s width of space between the bottom edge of the bullet-proof vest Stark had outfitted him with and the waistband of his pants. Steve grunted and jammed his elbow down into the forearm around him, stopping it before the blade slid home.

It hurt.

He could feel the warmth and wetness of blood as he moved, the wide but shallow wound gaping and tearing with each maneuver. The boy used his pinned position to his advantage. Steve effectively held him aloft, giving him the leverage he needed to bend his knees, bringing them up and panting his feet against Steve’s hips just beyond the edge of the shield. He pushed, driving Steve backward.

No kid had the right to be that strong.

There was something not quite right about his speed and strength, the way he seemed to be fighting two steps ahead of what Steve anticipated.

The knife switched hands again quickly. Steve slipped the shield back into the clips on his back and used the kid’s momentum to _his_ advantage. He grabbed the shoulders of his shirt and hoisted his body into the air, landing squarely in his attacker’s arms. The blade scraped against the layer of paint on the surface of the shield, inconsequential. Steve pressed his weight forward, tilting the boy back off balance. They hit the floor in a heap. Stunned, the boy let go of his knife. It clattered to the floor. Steve swung his legs around, swiping the discarded knife back down the hall, away from them, and put a heavy knee on the kid’s gut to hold him.

The daze left his eyes quickly, snarling, he lashed out. Steve slammed his face forward, colliding with the one under him. There was a sickening crack as bone hit bone and then the floor.

His breath came in quick bursts as he got to his feet. He groaned and pressed the heel of his palm into the wound at his side, his flank and thigh sticky with blood he could feel but not see in the semi-darkness. It was cool as it oozed from the small split in the skin of his forehead. He swiped at it, stopping the drop before it rolled into his eyes.

“Clear.”

The kid moved weakly, leg bending slightly and falling again as he lie there. One of the SHIELD agents stepped up, the click as he cocked his gun echoing in the otherwise silent hall. “Hey! Hey, didn’t you hear the Director’s orders?” Steve put a hand up, pushing the muzzle away.

“Just a kid.” He took a deep breath, testing the limits of the stretch of his skin. He winced, not too bad. “Don’t waste the round. ‘E’s not getting’ up.”

They moved around him, wary and continued on their way.

Steve motioned down several corridors that split off from the main hall. They were mostly still lit or featured a window here and there to light the way. Teams of two and three eased down them, checking in every several feet.

“Who’s going with you?” Gabe’s face was scrunched with concern.

“Super Soldier, remember?” Jones’ eyes flicked to Steve’s side. Steve bushed at the flakey dried blood on his forehead and nose. “I’ll be fine.” Gabe lifted his radio from his waist and spoke softly into it, relaying a coded message back to Rose at their base that there had been a skirmish and Steve had gotten hurt, his expression skeptical.

“Y’don’t need to be the hero, Steve. We’ve got your back. Signal over the radio and we’ll get to you.” Steve nodded and watched as Jones and Dugan eased down the hall together, leaving the last one for Steve.

***

They’d entered the compound with little difficulty. It felt too familiar, too easy. They were braced for conflict the moment the cover of Dernier’s diversion cleared. Their eyes in the skyline, hidden in the trees, relayed that everyone in the courtyard had rushed inside. Steve looked to Peggy, his eyes serious and body language open.

“Agent Carter.”

She exhaled slowly and turned around in her spot just as carefully, taking in the lay of the land. “Alright. We’ll split into two teams, as planned. If we can make it in and out with no casualties—on either side—that would be optimal. Anything and everything we’ve done since we crossed the border can be considered an act of war. Russia may not want the world to know about this operation, but they’re not going to forget who we are regardless of the circumstances. If you come into conflict, subdue. Use lethal force only as an absolute last resort.”

She jerked her chin toward a pair of SHIELD agents. They were much less battle tested, but they’d been proving themselves more than capable at the game of espionage, both gathering intelligence through back channels and gaming and physically finding it. “Find out what you can and rendezvous back at basecamp with Rose and the others. We need to know how Underwood is managing to look like she’s in her twenties and who she was working with. That information _must_ get back to SHIELD. The state of our mission has no weight on yours. Get in and get out.”

The two disappeared into the building. The remaining motley crew of Howling Commandos and SHIELD agents divided themselves into their respective teams. “They aren’t going to make this easy, the Red Room never does. Keep your eyes open. Don’t let your guard down. They’re girls but they’re highly trained. They’ll kill you as soon as look at you.” Sawyer glanced at Pinkerton, deep frowns on their faces. “You’ve got your objectives and they’ve got theirs. Just be safe.”

Steve hesitated for a moment as his team trotted toward the entrance. He opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, unable to find words. Peggy stepped close to him laying her hand against his cheek. “Go.”

He nodded, turning his face to brush his lips against her palm. “Yes, ma’am.” He turned and jogged away.

Peggy pulled the collapsible baton strapped at her hip off of her belt. “Alright.” She flicked her wrist sharply and the baton slid out, clicking as each segment fit into place and locked. “We’re splitting up to cover ground. No one enters or leaves this compound who isn’t one of ours.”

Half the group headed toward the south end of the courtyard, Peggy headed north with Pinkerton and Sawyer. Pinky radioed their movements back to Rose to help keep track of positions. “I don’t like this, Peggy.”

“Neither do I. They knew full well we were coming. I just hope we’re not walking _directly_ into an ambush.” They came to a fork in the path. “You two head that way, I’ll holler if I need an assist. Just remember what I said—I want my daughter back, not to be the linchpin that starts a new World War.”

“Roger that.”

“No, dear, Carter.” Pinky snickered and Sawyer rolled his eyes.

Peggy eased her way into a space that seemed to be a training yard. There were circles painted on the ground to designate specific spaces for sparring. There were wrappings abandoned on the ground as if someone had been removing them after a round of boxing and left in a hurry. There was a spray of red on the ground, like someone had sneezed with a bloody nose.

“Oh, Peggy! You came!” The smile on Dottie’s face was as radiant as it was dangerous, all teeth and open-mouthed and sparkling eyes. “I so hoped you would. Your girl,” she gesticulated as if having a conversation with a friend on the street while she paced slightly closer. “She is really a pleasure. Such a smart little thing, but I knew that already. She always asked such good questions in class. The smart mouth though, that’s definitely got to go. And she’s not really all-together graceful, terrible feet! But that might come in time.”

Peggy took note of the knife sheathed on Dottie’s thigh, remembering their last scuffle. There wasn’t much here to improvise with, she’d likely rely on the blade aside from hands and feet. It took a few of the variables out.

“I heard your little speech about not causing too much trouble. That’s awful kind of you, Peg, awful kind. But, you know? It’s not going to matter if you don’t cause a stir. There are far bigger things at work than you or I.” She laughed and stepped closer. “I noticed you had that fun little baton and I thought, gee? Wouldn’t it be a hoot to act out our last meeting again?” Her tone lowered and octave, though her smile remained. “I was wining, you know—until you pushed me out of that window. That was poor form, Peggy. But there’s no windows here. Just you and I—“

“Oh, _shut up._ ”

Peggy swung her baton toward Dottie’s head. She ducked and sidestepped the blow before swinging her leg out to catch Peggy square in the gut with her boot. Peggy held onto the leg using Dottie’s forward momentum to yank her off balance and send her to the ground.

“Oh! You’ve kept in shape! I think you could hold your own against my old teachers, Peg!”

Dottie sprang to her feet. The blade appeared in her hand. Peggy dodged swipes and blows with fist and weapon. Her heart thundered in her ears, threatening to burst out of her chest. The blade glanced off of the smooth edge of the baton as she blocked with it. Peggy whipped her body around, snapping her arms out like she was going for a home run. She smacked Dottie solidly across the shoulders, knocking her down.

The reprieve of having her opponent on the ground was short lived. Peggy’s feet went out from beneath her. She saw stars as her head smacked against the pavement and all of the air left her chest in a great _woosh_. She brought her hands up just in time to keep Dottie’s blade from coming down at her using the baton grasped in both hands.

Dottie laughed, light and girlish, her knee dug down into Peggy’s gut. “You’re not getting her back. She’s not yours anymore.” She bounced her weight. Peggy kicked and kneed, but the intensity of the pressure was too much. “I have to ask—who taught her how to fight? So sloppy! Must’ve been you, Peg—“

Peggy sucked in as much breath as she could, her expansion of her diaphragm to accommodate it considerably diminished. She bent her elbows, the tip of the blade she was holding away coming dangerously close to her face. She threw her arms forward with as much force as she could. The blade slid to the side, the sharp end swiping against Peggy’s fingers. Her grip slipped, her fingers made slick against the baton’s end with the gush of blood oozing out from the flap of skin at the root of her digits. The sudden movement was enough to throw Dottie off balance. They rolled like a pair of acrobats at the circus. Peggy cried out in pain when she thrust her hand into one of the pouches on her belt, her injured fingers the epicenter of the searing pain that shot up her arm. She pinched a smooth metal disc between her fingers and pulled it out of the pouch.

“Really? Using our own toys against us?” Dottie rolled, her hand closing around Peggy’s as she moved to sit on top of her. “How unimaginative.” She squeezed Peggy’s hand, forcing her to depress the button in the center of the disc. Dottie tensed, her teeth gritting and her gaze wide and intense. The pulse of electricity shot up Peggy’s arm, making all of her muscles tense. Dottie relaxed and shook and rolled away from Peggy, yanking her hand out of Peggy’s grip. “You just rest now. That was quite a shock.”

“Carter! Carter!” Sawyer came racing around the corner.

“Sam, n-no!” Peggy hefted herself onto her hands and knees. “Stop!”

Dottie plowed through him, her shoulder low, aimed for his solar plexus. He sprawled onto the ground, gasping for breath. “Fuck!” Dottie took off. Peggy got shakily to her feet, stumbling toward Sawyer to help him up. He gasped for air and clutch at his gut. “She—“

“Strong. Fast. Quite resilient. A little like someone else we know.”

“Yeah.” He patted himself down like he was checking to make sure he had all of his limbs. “Shit, she took my gun.” He looked at her, concern painted across his face. “You got, ah—“ He motioned toward his nose. Peggy swiped at her face with the back of her hand, smearing blood over her lips and chin when she did.  “I heard you holler. Then there was static over the radio.”

The electric button must have caused Peggy’s to short out. “Call up the others. They need to know Underwood is in play.”

***

It reminded him of the room at the dance school they’d taken Lillian to that summer. Shed decided on a whim that she wanted to be a ballerina. They’d indulged her. She’d hung on every word that the woman who ran the school said, twisting her feet at strange angles and keeping her expression very serious. It had lasted all of about a week. Steve and Peggy had known she’d lost interest in the classes when she asked to wear her wire-hanger wings. The teacher wouldn’t allow it, had made her take them off before letting her go to the barre to stretch out with the other students.

Her second position became too wide, her plié too froggy. Each time she was corrected, the mischievous sparkle in her eyes intensified. Her shaky attempts at jetés and sissonnes, mimicking the older girls, became attempts to fly off the ground. Each time she made the circuit around the room, a dozen little girls all moving in a circular path of chaînés and chassés, she plucked out the low A at the end of the piano. The pianist seemed to be entertained, the teacher very clearly wasn’t. They were told they had to impress some kind of discipline on Lilly, that her behavior wouldn’t be tolerated.

Peggy’d narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips and told the ballet teacher she had no business saying such things, that Lilly was just barely school-aged and was testing the waters. The teacher turned up her nose when Steve pointed out the poor behavior exhibited by another child, one that the teacher clearly favored.

They spent another week. Lilly grew bored and frustrated and decided that maybe she might like to try again next summer. Maybe she might like to play an instrument like James instead, just not a violin. She didn’t want hard bits on her fingers.

The soft piano music coming from the Victrola echoed through the empty room, sounding louder than it was. The young woman at the barre couldn’t have been much older than the boy who’d attacked him in the corridor.

“Captain America?” She spoke in flat, unaccented English. She raised a brow and slowly rolled her body up from the deep bend at the waist she was in. “I was getting bored. Shall we begin?”

She was muscular and upright and her blonde braids just brushed her shoulders. She moved with a grace that indicated years of discipline as she turned her back on him and crossed the room to move the needle off of the record. Steve thought fleetingly that he was getting a peek into Lilly’s future.

The silence was unnerving. He almost would have preferred if she’d just run at him with Tchaikovsky playing in the background. It would have felt more like a bad dream, less like a horrifying reality.

She slipped into an easy turn and leapt, pushing off from the barre and launching herself at him. Steve thrashed, trying to throw her off. The shield hit the floor in a clatter. Her grip was tight, fingers fisted into the shoulder of his shirt and his hair, a knee slung forward over the other shoulder. She dug her fingertips into the hollow at the top of his collarbone, forcing him down with the pressure, making his arm tingle and his head spin. On his knees, he felt steadier, his movement less wild with the young Widow on his back. He dropped his shoulder, trying to throw her off with a quick jerk.

His head cracked between a sharp elbow and the hard wood of the floor. Pain washed over him, the small gash from his earlier fight opening again. A knee was planted between his shoulders and her hands moved in a flurry—he barely had the space of a second to get his hand between the cord and his throat. Steve rolled to the side, squeezing his eyes shut against the fresh ooze of blood from his forehead, trapping the young woman between his bulk and the floor. She yanked down on the garrote, making his knuckles press into his windpipe.

Thrashing would only make it worse, that much he quickly realized. The harder he fought the tighter she pulled at the cord. His throat hurt. His chest burned. His vision began to darken at the edges, like the world was flattening out into a vignette portrait.

***

“What do you mean no one is answering?”

“Exactly that, no one is answering!” Pinkerton frantically tested channels and shouted into his radio. He flipped back to the frequency Rose was listening in on, “Can you reach ‘em?”

“No, not a single one. It’s like there’s something jamming the signal.”

Falsworth’s voice crackled over the radio, “Carter, I know you—you’re just as reckless as the Captain—do not go rushing in there! Hold the perimeter.”

“You can’t give me orders, Monty.”

“I’m not, Peggy.”

“I can’t stand around and be useless.”

“Send a few in. They’ve probably split up in there, it’s a large compound. Spreading ourselves out further will only leave us more vulnerable. We all want Lilly back. We can’t leave anything to chance.” He was right.

“Alright, we need to consider the possibility that anyone we send in there will be cut off from communication.”

Cohen stepped forward, “I’ll go. If I can creep ‘round the house without wakin’ my boys up I can sneak in there and try’da get to Steve.”

“We don’t know where he is. We haven’t any idea what the inside of that place looks like.”

“I’ll take two of the probies, we’ll split up. They can’t have spread out too much in there, it would be too much of a risk. With any luck we’ll catch up with Underwood and keep ‘er outta the way.”

***

Steve found his free arm pinned under the crook of the young woman’s knee, the angle was awkward enough that he could not get out. Her heel dug into the wound on his side, making his stomach flip and bile race up the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and reached out with his fingertips, struggling to reach the pouch on his belt. The pressure on his throat was edging toward unbearable, his knuckles doing the work the garrote couldn’t. He managed to pinch the edge of the flap over the pouch between his fingertips. He jerked his arm up, crying out in pain as her heel dragged his skin upward, the bottom edge of the vest now digging into the open flesh.

It was enough.

The flap popped open and a handful of those funny little electric discs slid out onto the floor. He grabbed one and twisted as much as his captor would allow. He prayed silently that the cord at his throat was just cord, no wire.

He pressed the disc into the meat of her thigh, pressing the button in.

She shrieked.

She went limp beneath him, her limbs slackening.

Steve rolled away, heaving himself up onto all fours. He sucked in air and hacked and wheezed. He hugged himself, feeling like he was going to split in two.

He looked over his shoulder. She was breathing. That was good. Minimum mission objective met. His eyes fell to the smears of blood on the floor. He leaned forward, swiping at it with his sleeve. It was more than clear that if the Red Room didn’t find Lilly useful that they intended to use her to study the serum. Didn’t matter that neither one of the kids seemed to have inherited anything serum-related. Their health came from Peggy and the good upbringing they were getting.

He’d be damned if he made it easy for them.

Someone shrieked. The sound was shrill and high and angry and utterly familiar. Steve took off in the direction of the sound, snatching the shield off the floor as he passed, pushing through the door at the other end of the dance space and launching himself down the hall.

He skidded to a halt. The wail sounded again though the door. He tried the handle, finding it locked. “Lilly?” She stopped. “Lilly!” He pounded against the door. “Lilly!” His voice caught in his throat, mind racing with every horrible thing that could possibly be going on behind that door. He slammed his shoulder into the door. The frame creaked but held. “Stay—stay back!” He stumbled backward and squared his feet. He leaned back, bringing his leg up and kicking at the door just below the knob. Splinters flew, the door crashed inward.

And nothing horrible was happening.

The room looked like the doctor’s office that Steve sometimes drove Bucky to. The doc poked and prodded and stretch and dug his fingers into scar tissue from old injuries and made sure Bucky’s back and shoulders were still okay and helped him make adjustments to his am while he laid on a padded table and gritted his teeth.

Lilly had her hands clamped down over her ears, blocking out the sound of her own shrieking, with her knees drawn up to her chest while she sat on the table.

Steve’s eyes burned with salty tears that he blinked away. “Lilly, my Lilly.” He approached her slowly, setting a hand on her shin. “Mo leanbh.” She looked up at him, red in the face. Her expression morphed from fear to joy and back again.

“Papa.” She surged forward into his arms, squeezing him tight around the neck and letting him pull her off the table. “Papa, you’re hurt. Your face is sticky.”

“I’m fine, Tiger Lilly.”

“Can I go home now?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re goin’ home. Mama’s waitin’ for us outside.” He pulled her up and her legs wrapped around him. He groaned, her weight sitting over his injury, and shifted her to the other side. “You have to hang on tight, okay?” She nodded and ducked her head, her fists clenching around the strap over his shoulder, her knees digging into his back and his gut. He settled the shield on his arm, the wide circumference of it effectively hiding the petite child. He yanked his radio off of his waist to contact the others. “Package secure, over.” He looked down at Lilly—at the white sleeveless shirt and black shorts, the white socks and black shoes and precise braids. He listened to the static that came back over the radio at him and wanted nothing more than to get rid of it all, to wrap her in the fluffy comforter from her bed at home and pretend none of this had happened. “Hello?” Nothing. “Shit.”

“Papa!” she scolded.

“I’m sorry.” He hugged her closer, “You have to be very quiet. Can you do that?” She nodded and held on and pressed her lips together, sealing them shut.

Steve eased out into the hall. Everything was indistinct and confusing in the dim red emergency lights. He wasn’t sure whether the better option was to retrace his steps or to find a different path out of the building. He moved down the hall until he would be forced to decide whether to go back though the dance space, potentially encountering the Widow he’d already tussled with again, or turn and go down the opposite hall. He tried his radio again to no avail.

“Lilly, do you know how to get out of here?” She shook her head and buried her face against him once more. It was worth a try.

He moved quietly through empty corridors, moving past locked doors that appeared to be training rooms and storage and offices. He heard no movement behind any of them. It worried him. With an operation as established as the Red Room had become, surely the place should be a bustling hub of activity?

Little heels dug into his side. “I have to put you down for a minute, is that okay?” She nodded and allowed herself to be placed on her feet. They ducked into a shadowy nook. Steve pressed a hand into his side and tried to keep his breathing steady while he attempted to make contact once again. Something was wrong. They’d tested all of their radios before they’d reached their drop point.

“Who’s strong and brave, here to save the American Way? Who vows to fight like a man for what’s right night and day?” Lilly whimpered and pressed her face against his thigh, hiding herself behind his legs.

“We can’t ignore there’s a threat and a bore who can’t win. Who’ll hang a noose on the goose-stepping goons from Brooklyn?”

“Papa!” He shushed her, pressing back into the shadows as if they could melt into the wall and let Underwood pass.

“Who waked the giant that napped in America? We know it’s no one but Captain America—well, now that’s not entirely true, is it, Captain?” She laughed, sugary sweet. “Olly olly oxen free!” She dragged out the syllables in her sing-song tone. She was nearly silent, her steps just the faintest of scuffs against the floor as she drew near. Steve pried Lilly’s fingers away from his leg and stepped away from their hiding place, swinging his arm out to _whap_ solidly against Dottie with the shield. She made a short sound of distress before crumpling to the floor. He stepped out, looking down at her, praying she didn’t rise.

But really, why would he be that lucky?

She chuckled, low and dangerous. “That all you’ve got? I bet Peggy taught you how to fight, didn’t she?” Dottie got to her feet, straightening the front of her shirt and pushing back escaped tendrils of hair. “She was easy. Not as quick in her old age as she used to be.”

Steve’s relief at having his daughter back, even if they weren’t quite back to safety yet, was overwhelmed by the fear that Dottie had some something irreparably terrible to Peggy and anger at the very notion. He found himself not really caring about minimum mission objectives anymore.

If he killed Dottie, he killed her. He wouldn’t look back. He’d accept whatever the consequences were, turn himself in at the UN if that was what it took to keep the country out of another war. He wondered briefly what kind of trial there would be when he pleaded guilty to killing an enemy operative who, he was reasonably sure, technically didn’t exist. Would they take into consideration the fact that she’d kidnapped his child? Whatever Lilly had experienced there? That this woman had taken his wife from him, from their children, from the agency she ran?

Dottie was a flurry of fists and feet. She kept him on his toes, driving him back, never quite landing a hit but not letting him have a moment of rest, not letting him catch his breath.

His head hurt. His side hurt.

His body was screaming at him to stop. Sit. Sleep. Have a drink of water and reconsider this entire thing.

He gritted his teeth and pressed forward, focusing his fatigue down a different path, into rage, something he could use—moving the fight away from where his daughter was hiding.

He snapped his foot out, connecting with her gut, sending her flying down the hall, a ragdoll tossed by an unruly child. Underwood huffed and pushed herself up off the floor, smiling with too many teeth as she eyed the movement of Steve’s hands. He squared his feet and unholstered the Luger, flipping the safety with his thumb as he pulled it out of the leather. He squeezed the toggle between his thumb and index finger, pulling it back and letting it fall into place with a satisfying click.

Steve felt like he was watching the action in front of him in slow motion. Underwood got to her feet and jumped up, pushing off one wall and then the other, launching herself toward him.

He lifted his arm to fire, trying to anticipate the flow of her movement, shooting where she was going to be. A round grazed her calf in a short spray of shining, dark blood. Another plinked against the wall, dislodging bits of the cement-block surface. Her foot came down on his hand as he pulled the trigger again. The round hit the floor. The pistol clattered against the linoleum as it fell from his grip and Dottie’s knuckles made contact with his jaw.

Steve’s mouth was slick with warm, tangy blood. The inside of his cheek burned where his teeth cut into it.

The blade in Underwood’s hand glinted in the red light. She drove it down, he sidestepped. It stuck fast in the layers of fabric of his bulletproof vest. Dottie dropped to the floor, sliding like she’d hit a homer, grabbing the Luger as she went. Steve whipped his body around to face her, slipping the shield from one arm to the other, the hilt of her knife clutched under his arm. He unholstered his Colt, flipped the safety, cocked the hammer, and fired.

The sound of both firearms going off echoed loudly in the corridor.

Lilly shrieked from her hiding place.

Underwood laid there still, the Luger held in her hand, finger still on the trigger.

She stared blankly at the ceiling.

Steve stepped forward, ignoring the pain that shot up and down his leg when he did. He kicked at her foot and received no response. He edged forward cautiously, placing the toe of his boot down on her wrist and taking the gun back from her. He engaged the safety and holstered it, nudging her again in the side. No movement. Darkness spread across the white fabric of her shirt across her belly.

“Lilly?” She sobbed softly from her hiding place. He sank down beside her. “You’re okay?” She hiccupped and nodded and threw her arms around him. He grunted, trying not to alarm her, trying to tuck the pain of the rounds in his thigh away someplace he could manage it better. “I need you to sit down, okay?” She reluctantly pulled away and sat down on the floor. Steve fumbled with his belt, the pouches catching behind him and making it hard to yank around his waist. Clumsy fingers reached into one of them to find the transponder Stark had insisted he carry, several of them spread out through the team in case of emergency. He pressed the button to activate it, praying it would work when his radio still failed him. He fed his belt under his leg and cinched it as tight as he could, pressing the heel of his palm into his thigh, trying to slow the bleeding.

Underwood was smart.

Underwood was dead.

The team would come.

Lilly would be safe.

Even if Steve bled out while he waited. The belt wouldn’t stay put where he tightened it, no hole to stick the prong through in that stretch of the leather.

“Yer gonna hide behind my shield, okay? You gotta make yerself small, like when you play with James and you hide in the kitchen cupboard.”

“I don’t wanna hide, I wanna go home!”

“I know. I’m too tired, mo leanbh. I can’t carry you.”

“I can walk!”

“I need a rest. Dum Dum is gonna come get us, okay?” He passed the shield over his lap and let her prop it up on its edge, the new pain job letting her melt into the shadows in their darkened little nook. “How about a story while we wait?”

“Okay.”

***

“Dugan! Jones!” Isadore waved and raised his hands in the air to signal that he was a friendly. “Where’s Rogers?”

“No idea. Lost ‘im after we split.” Dugan jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the handful of SHIELD agents behind him. “Found the intel team, got them out, then got in a little tussle with some of the, eh, adults? Tutors? The creepy ladies who hand yeh yer own ass. This little electric things work wonders. Dragged ‘em into a closet’n left ‘em.”

A high-pitched beep sounded from somewhere on Dugan’s person as Isadore explained the malfunctioning radios. “We think there’s a jammer somewhere—what’s that?”

“Transponder. Everyone is here, gotta be Rogers.”

“How is that working but the radios aren’t?”

“It’s Stark tech, do you really need an answer?”

***

Peggy swung her arms, making solid contact with the large man’s gut as he barreled toward her. “Have you finished resetting that thing yet?” He grabbed at the end of her baton, yanking her closer. She drove her knee up into his crotch with as much force as she could muster.

Morita huffed and grunted and shifted his weight on his knees. They’d stalked the outside of the compound, looking for anything that might be causing the lack of signal or supplying power to what was. They would cut the power to the entire compound if they had to.

Peggy was frustrated. She was tired.

She was terrified.

Where was Steve? Had he found their child? Was he safe?

Had she lost them both?

No one on the outside had spotted Underwood since Peggy had encountered her.

“Jus’a minute, I think I got this…”

The large man gripped Peggy’s wrist tightly. Her fingers tingled, the flap of skin on the back of them popped open, the scrap of undershirt she’d torn off and wrapped around them scraping and burning the raw flesh beneath. He yanked her toward himself and she turned, quick and sharp like when Barnes whipped her around on the dancefloor the last time they’d all gone out, her arm a bar across her own chest, her back to his ample front. She drove her elbow back into him threw her hips back. He rolled almost easily forward, across her back, landing flat on his in front of her, stunned.

“Got it!”

They clamped their hands down over their ears at the loud squawk their radios let out.

***

The beeping from the transponder grew more insistent, an indication that they were approaching the unit that had initiated the contact. Cohen put his arm out to stop Jones and Dugan. They’d sent the other agents down another hall, in the direction of their entrance point. The Howlers grouped together peering down the hall in the dim light at the dark puddle on the floor.

“But the princess said t’the knight, ‘No, sir, I’m not goin’!’ Because… because th’drag’in was’ere to protect ‘er from big… big dummies who thought all princesses needed savin’. And the princess shut the door’n went back t’er room where the drag’in lit ‘er a nice warm fire and she… and she… she kept studyin’. She kept studyin’ because she was gonna be a great queen, just like ‘er Ma and she needed to know how to—“

Rogers’ voice was quiet, soft. He groaned, breathy, like someone past the point of pain—more reflex than concrete expression.

“Papa?”

“I’m okay.”

“Rogers?” He was slumped against the wall, his head tipped back, looking pale even in the limited light. His eyes slid from the shadowy corner to the hall, looking but not quite seeing. He raised a trembling hand, finger resting on the trigger guard of the highly polished Colt. “Rogers! It’s us!” Dugan sank down onto his knees and gently took the gun from him. “What the hell happened?”

“Und’wood… She…” He pointed toward the hall, a vague gesture to the dark spot on the floor just beyond the alcove he was sitting in.

“She’s gone, Cap. Looks like yeh got ‘er good, though.”

“No! She…” He groaned again, eyelids fluttering. His fingers were pressed into his groin, his knee bent, his belt lying on the floor under his leg.

“How’s Lil doin’?” Isadore approached a smudge in the shadow that looked suspiciously round. Lillian’s fingers slowly gripped the edge of the shield and moved it away. “Hey, you ‘member me?” He named his sons, telling her he was their father. Lilly nodded, she played with them occasionally. “And you know Dummy here? And Gabe?” She nodded again. “We’re gonna get you and yer Pop outside where yer Ma’s waitin’.” He eased the shield out of her grip. She cast a nervous glance at Steve. “Pop’s really tired and I could use a buddy, y’wanna come with me?” She allowed him to scoop her into his arms, reaching back over his shoulder toward Steve.

Steve pushed the shield toward them, “G’with Izzy, a le—“ He squeezed his eyes shut when Jones pressed his hand down on Steve’s thigh. “Take it.” Isadore nodded, sliding the shield onto his arm, guarding the girl in his arms with it. “Go.” Lilly wailed loud enough to wake the dead when Isadore took off at a trot, more than a little reluctant to leave her father behind.

“I can’t pick him up, you gotta.” Jones helped Dugan to pull Steve away from the wall, hooking his arms under the barely conscious man’s and hefting him up into some semblance of a standing postion. Dugan bent down and stuck his shoulder against Steve’s pelvis, grabbing his wrist and lifting.

“Christ, yer fuckin’ heavier than yeh look.” He earned an irritated moan when he jerked his shoulders to adjust his balance. “Let’s get the fuck outta here, Jonesy.”

“Shit! The hell was ‘at?” Steve didn’t respond when Dugan jostled him to turn the knob on the radio on his hip. A tinny voice came through the box. “Did we just get coms back?”

Jones snatched his radio up, “Hello? This is Jones! Hello!” Cohen responded from several yards ahead, his voice echoing back at them around the corner and through the box in Gabe’s hand. “I’m switchin’ channels!” Relief flooded his whole carriage when Rose answered. “Rosie! We’ve got Cap! Underwood turned ‘im inna Swiss cheese, looks like he might have at least one other injury. Can’t fuckin’ tell in here, it’s too damn dark, we’re commin’ to you.” She answered back that she was sending the Jeep down as close as she could to their pre-decided escape point. Beyond that they were on their own.

Isadore flipped to the channel that the interior and exterior teams were meant to communicate on. “Carter!”

“Izzy!”

“The package is secure, but we’ve got injuries. We’re commin’ out.”

***

It was as if they’d simply given up.

When they retreated, it was as though they’d dissolved into the atmosphere, like they were never there.

“Don’t let your guard down!” Peggy stood back to back with Morita, her eyes trained on the door.  The seconds stretched into agonizing minutes as Morita spoke evenly, calmly into his radio to coordinate with Rose. His confident intonations did nothing to sooth the ache of the knowledge that someone was hurt and she didn’t know who. One of the boys? Her husband? Her daughter?

Isadore emerged from the building first, his torso largely covered with Steve’s shield. Peggy’s heart sank into her belly even as bile licked up the back of her throat. Cohen offered a grim smile and adjusted his arms. Lilly peered out from behind the shield, red-faced and tear stained but appearing to be whole.

“Oh!” Peggy put her arms out and gathered her child tightly into them. “Steve?”

“Right behind me. Let’s go, Carter, no time to waste.” The three raced toward the wall. Jim hoisted himself up and gave the all-clear. He took Lilly, helped Peggy over and handed the child back down to her. They would have to make their way through a stretch of trees, their retreat covered by the blast Dernier would set off even though it seemed ever-increasingly likely that they were going to be allowed to escape without further conflict.

Lilly was quiet in Peggy’s arms while they waited in the back of the Jeep. The first vehicle had already taken off with a load of agents inside, heading toward the border and the extraction point that they had decided best for Howard to land in. “We’re going to go home now, my darling.” She just burrowed down deeper into Peggy’s arms.

There was a flurry of activity just beyond the waxed canvas flaps covering the back end of the vehicle. Gabriel hurtled inside, immediately grabbing for the medical kit stored just behind the driver’s seat. Monty looked up at her sympathetically when he held back the flap of canvas. Dugan and Morita grunted and huffed as they hefted Steve’s body up into the bed of the Jeep.

Peggy was mortified, her eyes going wide and her heartbeat racing. Morita climbed up into the back of the Jeep. “Hey, little lady. How ‘bout ya come sit with me fer a while?” Lilly went without protest, expressionless and pliant and pale.

Jones spoke quietly as he cut into the leg of Steve’s pants, dark with blood stiff and dry in some places, shining and wet in others. “Can we get the vest off?” Dugan nodded and popped open the buttons of Steve’s shirt to get access to the closures on the bulletproof vest below. Steve stared up at nothing, his skin too white, his breathing hardly noticible. He didn’t react when Jones probed at the ugly holes in his thigh or instructed Dugan to flush out the wound in his side, the edges of the wound pale and tattered and dead-looking. He was a mess, his face was smeared with blood that seemed to have come from a cut on his forehead. His undershirt was soaked with it on his flank. “I can’t do much while we’re in the back’a the car. It’ll have to wait. Just gotta keep ‘im from bleedin’. Clean this all out, pray that Stark found somebody who’ll take us.”

Steve’s eyes rolled in is head and fluttered closed. His breath left his chest in a rush. “Hey, big guy, you back with us?” He made the smallest of noises in response. Peggy sank to her knees and took his hand in hers. His fingers were cold.

“Steve? Steve. Steve, please.” She ignored the pitiful look Dugan gave her from his other side. His eyes opened and he seemed to try to focus on her. “Steve I’m here. Everything is going to be fine.” She pressed his clammy palm to her cheek, brushing her lips against it. His lips parted, his tongue pressed against the back of his teeth as he breathed out. “Lilly?” He stopped trying to speak. “She’s here, she’s sitting with Jim. She’s safe, Steve.”

She didn’t know how he had it in him, the whole of his body and the powers of the serum likely working toward keeping his heart beating with so little fuel to pump through it, but tears welled up and slid from his eyes down over the sides of his face.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, or at least that was what Peggy heard.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

“Ev… e’thin’”

He was out again when they loaded him onto the craft that would carry them away from immediate danger. “We gotta keep it quiet, but I found a hospital in Finland that’ll take ‘im. Friend’a Erskine’s I’ve kept in touch with on and off settled over there. He’s waitin’ fer us.”

***

“Don’t be silly, Ms. Carter. I am an excellent tutor as is Seargeant Barnes, we’ve more than kept up with James’ school work from here.” It was a week before Steve had recovered to the doctor’s liking to be allowed to travel. He was healing slowly, the blood loss too traumatic and the efficiency of the serum disrupted for it. Steve wanted to head back to New York against doctor’s orders, just return to normalcy as quickly as possible. Peggy told Bucky. Bucky gave him an earful. He stayed.

“Well, we’re coming home.”

He had to be careful to keep the sitches in his side and leg from pulling. He’d have to bathe with a basin and cloth until they were ready to come out. He wouldn’t be able to run around after his children for some time. He’d have to work exclusively from home until he was cleared to make the jaunt back and forth to Manhattan.

It didn’t stop him from hobbling into the foyer of Stark’s place of his own accord when they pulled into the driveway of the estate after touching down on the private air field. He grimaced but didn’t draw away when James hugged him tightly and then melted into Barnes’ embrace when the man came racing down the stairs from the widow’s walk where he kept watch over the property.

The psychologist that SHIELD employed to tend to its agents saw Lillian on a regular schedule. She seemed to bounce back beautifully in her waking moments, though they were not sure if or when her newly developed tendency toward night terrors would be resolved. She no longer allowed Steve to weave her hair into twin French plaits. She did speak freely about the time she spent with Underwood at the Red Room when prompted. She remembered another woman, though the memory was fuzzy—both Steve and Peggy’s stomachs had leapt into their throats at the implications that held—and a plane and a car and very bumpy roads and lots of snow even though it wasn’t extremely cold like it was when it snowed at home. She reaffirmed her lack of interest in dancing. Mostly, she had just wanted to come home. The school they made her go to wasn’t as fun as her own school. Everyone answered questions together and no one ever got out of their seats and there was no one who read them stories or tied their shoes. The scariest part had been when a girl she called Yelena shoved her into room and left her there all alone. The lights had gone out and everything had been red-colored after that but her Papa had come and gotten her out. There were loud noises and Miss Wood and Lilly’s Papa had had a fight and after that he said he was too tired and they had to wait for his friends to help them but she knew he was hurt because he made sounds like James did when he broke his finger in boxing class. Lilly understood that Miss Wood was not who she said she was, that she was a bad person, that nothing that had happened had been her fault.

It was more than evident that their excursion into territory that had been deemed off-limits was well known by at least the American branch of the group of people who oversaw and funded SHIELD’s operations. Rumor around the office was that Jack had gone to the director’s superiors the first chance he has. Peggy sat through interrogations and debriefings and conferences. Eventually, they found that the information that they’d learned about Red Room operations was worth the disobedience and risk.

“We believe that, while they may not be trying to recreate the Super Soldier Serum directly, they have found ways to enhance their operatives.” They’d left with a handful of paper files and multiple rolls of film from Stark’s discreet cameras. The information told the story of biological enhancements, a virtual fountain of youth it seemed, and psychological conditioning, wiping of the mind and planting new histories and information inside through intensive electrical shock therapy and suggestion. They were turning their operatives into living weapons. There were vague references to Karpov and a _Department X_. “We have reason to believe that aside from the implications, both political and scientific, in seizing Lillian Rogers that they have other targets in mind if that particular avenue didn’t pan out. Seargeant Barnes was the subject of quite a bit of experimentation while he was a prisoner of HYDRA, they see him as a potential asset.”

Peggy had gasped for air and fought back illness when she emerged from the interrogation room that the private meeting was held in. She squeezed Steve’s hand when he go to his feet and adjusted his crutch under his arm before going into the room next. Thompson walked by, smoothing the front of his shirt as he came out of the restroom. He shot her a disdainful look. She closed her eyes and pictured herself pushing him out the window but kept her lips decidedly sealed.

The wife of one of the agents came out of retirement to take up the position of Kindergarten teacher. She’d been in the Royal Forces during the War, fresh out of school and not yet with any experience in the classroom to make her not want to join up. She was looking forward to being back in the classroom. She loved children and had none of her own. It was almost immediately and unanimously agreed by the other parents that she was the best thing to happen to the students. The monsignor and sisters found it hard to resist the placement when Steve limped into the school office with his jaw set and his eyes stony. Peggy put the paperwork that made the agent’s wife an employee of the school and the diocese down on the monsignor’s desk and directed him where to sign. They decided that pulling the children out of St. Francis and finding a new school would do more harm that good.

***

It was nearing Thanksgiving.

Peggy’s parents would be staying with them at the brownstone though the end of the year and then travelling down to her brother’s estate to spend some time there. They had no idea of what had transpired earlier in the fall, Steve and Peggy intended to do their best to keep it that way.

Peggy traced her fingers over the bright white scar on his side, feather-light and reverent, while she settled herself across his legs. It would fade. The surgeon who’d finally patched him up in Finland had been quite the artist with a suture and Peggy had taken to massaging the lotions and ointments he’d rubbed on her belly during her pregnancies into his skin each night. Steve didn’t really care much if any of the scars from that day ever faded. He was just happy to be alive. Happy that the handful of transfusions he’d had to have hadn’t shown any negative impact. Happy his family was safe and home and together even if they were still working toward being okay.

Peggy was radiant in the pinkish-orange light of the sunrise. The house was still and quiet. The birds that hadn’t yet fled in favor of warmer climates were beginning to wake. She smiled, sleepy and content, when Steve rubbed his hands over her thighs under her nightgown, chasing away the chill on her skin from the autumn air.

“One’v us has ta get ‘em from the airport…” He sighed, warmth curling down into his belly. “…’n I fer’got about groceries yesterday. They’re spoilin’ everythin’, y’know. We were suppose’ta go out with Bucky t’ meet Nat t’night… celebrate… she got inna that school’r somethin’…”

He wrinkled his brow and frowned when Peggy stopped moving her hand, his foreskin drawn up too far around his head, the tension in his skin riding the edge of uncomfortable.

“Might you…I don’t know, refrain from talking about such mundane… nonsense? At least until after I’ve finished with you?”

She stroked back down firmly and dragged her thumb over his slit. He gasped, his face flushing with color. “Refraining. Yes, ma’am.”

He found himself not quite minding that their house was about to be taken over by the in-laws. It would give him and Peggy time together alone that they wouldn’t otherwise have. Time to figure things out.

Things were… better. They were talking.

And touching.

It all felt much easier after having almost lost it.

Peggy stroked up and down, twisting her wrist in ways that made Steve’s toes curl. She scooted back, plunking down between his spread knees, her legs splayed carelessly. She bent down, hollowing her cheeks as she sucked his cock into her mouth. Her head bobbed slowly. She hummed in approval when a thumb pressed gently into that sensitive spot just behind his testicles made him moan out loud. She sucked hard, pulling off with a pop. His cock dropped back down against his belly with the solid _thwap_ of taut skin-on-skin. She looked up at him with sleep-tangled hair and heavy-lashed smolder.

“You’ll wake the whole house.”

“It’ll be your fault.”

She laughed and rose up on her knees, pulling her nightgown up and over her head as she went. She closed her eyes, tongue running out over her bottom lip as she caressed her own skin, light pink marks appearing across breast and belly before she rubbed herself firmly through the light cotton panties she still wore. She slipped her fingers along the gusset, revealing the slick shine of her hair before she stroked her fingers down into her folds. She looked down at him, a wicked smile painted across her lips, and ran the nail of her index finger slowly up the underside of his cock, making it jerk off of his belly in response.

“Oh God, Peg.” He laughed as well, reedy and tight, and covered his face with his hands.

She took him in hand, sliding his head back and forth through her folds, the elastic edge of her panties rough against his crown where she held it aside, and sank slowly down. Steve let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, focusing his consciousness on the feel of Peggy’s neat fingernails pressing against his pelvis. He uncovered his face to watch himself disappear into her, his head swimming with the warmth and closeness of it.

“Ah!” She slid herself up again and closed her eyes, letting her chin rest against her chest while she bounced just inches up and down, teasingly. Finally she seated herself onto him, stilling her body completely. Steve reached out and put his hands on her hips, kneading his fingers into her skin, pushing. She was like stone, resisting his attempts to get her going. He jerked his hips up and she raised a brow. “You just gonna sit there?” he asked with a laugh.

“Maybe. It’s quite nice.”

“Then I’m gonna start goin’ over the grocery list.” He closed his eyes and settled himself down into his body for the game. He rattled off the first few things he could think of as he pictured the interior of the fridge. Peggy rolled her hips forward, grinding herself down firmly against him. He couldn’t remember what color the fridge was, let alone what was missing out of it.

Peggy moved slowly, almost lazy with languid fluidity. He watched her body relax, arms getting loose, tension in her thighs only enough to support her movement. Her head rolled from one side to the other, a far-away smile on her face. Steve mapped her thighs and belly with his fingertips, following the roads created by pearly white stretch marks and browned scars and beauty spots. She breathed in, her belly and chest expanding as full as they could, and let it out slowly. Steve sat up, gathering her close, making her arch herself into him.

She gasped and laughed when he lifted her. She bounced down against the mattress, shoulders shaking with silent mirth, head hanging over the foot of the bed. He kissed her, licking into her mouth and sucking on her lip as he pulled away. She sighed and tipped her head back, her cheeks pink and warm, lashes dark and full against her cheeks.

Steve rolled her panties down over her hips. He gathered her legs together to roll the undergarment the rest of the way down, leaving them draped over his shoulder. He peppered sweet kisses against her ankle and calf. She mumbled his name and stretched her arms back over her head, her knuckles brushing against the floor when she reached.

He was stuck by how long it had been since he’d drawn her, a real picture, not just a sketch of her profile used to warm up. Her eyelashes fluttered and she made quiet, pleased sounds as he nipped at the muscle of her leg and soothed the bites with his tongue. Her breasts shifted with the pull of gravity when she moved, her back arching high, her buttocks rubbing firmly against his crotch. He committed the play of muscle and skin and bone as she breathed deeply and stretched to memory.

He stroked himself several times from root to tip, rubbing the head of his cock through her lips and the wetness of her arousal before he pressed himself in to a soft “Oh, Steve.”

With her legs pressed together as they were, everything was much tighter, closer, and more immediate. “ _Fuck_ ,” he swore under his breath. Peggy pressed her lips together. Her hands came up to grip the fitted sheet tightly as Steve snapped his hips, thrusting into her like a piston, quick and sharp until he leaned down heavily, folding Peggy’s knees into her chest and grinding his pelvis down as he came. She stroked his hair as he shook and panted. He could feel the heat of the blush the spread over his chest and back as his heart hammered in his ears.

Peggy took his hand, kissing his fingertips before sucking two into her mouth, running her tongue over and between them. “The alarm is going to go off soon, darling,” her voice was low and husky. He sat back on his haunches and lowered her legs down onto either side of his. He dipped his spit-shined fingers between her legs, gathering the sticky white fluid rolling down through her hair onto them before pushing them inside of her gently. He hooked his finger up, pressing into the warm, spongy tissue.

“Then I better be quick, huh?”

She laughed and bit her lip as he crawled backward and lowered his face between her legs.

***

Steve showered like he was in a race, pecking her on the cheek before he climbed out of the tub to leave her to finish. She took her time, aware of how many minutes she had before she needed to hustle down the stairs to get the children off to school. She dressed quickly in clothes she’d laid out the evening before and twisted her hair up into a bun at the back of her neck. She blushed, silently scolding herself—what was she? A school girl?—when she caught sight of herself in the mirror and noticed the angry red splotch on her neck. She went back to the closet ad picked out a brightly patterned silk scarf to tie around her throat.

Peggy checked in on the children. James was standing in front of the mirror on the inside of his closet door with a serious expression as he focused on getting the knot in his tie straight. Lilly was working her legs into a pair of burgundy-colored wool tights, her legs in the air as she laid on the floor with her toes pointed toward the ceiling. Peggy held back a laugh and trotted down the stairs.

She breathed in the smell of cinnamon, a pot of oatmeal waiting on the stove. She turned the corner and was surprised to find Steve standing over the ironing board in his olive-colored uniform shirt and boxer shorts and socks. His jacket, heavy with decoration, was hanging over the back of a chair at the breakfast table with his tie. He was running the iron over his pants.

“What’s the occasion?”

“Today is show-and-tell day and that Phil character is gonna stop calling Tiger Lilly a liar or my name is Susan.” Peggy raised a brow, not realizing until she saw the shield, highly polished and brightly colored, lying on the table that it hadn’t been hanging in its place over their bed. “Do we know his parents? I got half a mind to go talk to ‘em.” Peggy asked what the child’s family name was. “Coulson.” She’d met the mother briefly at the bake sale at the very beginning of the year. She seemed like a reasonable woman.

Peggy hugged him tightly around the waist, resting her head against his shoulder as his arm worked back and forth over the crisp pant leg. “I’ll pick up the groceries if you make a list.” He nodded in assent.  “And I’ll pick my parents up from the airport.”

“Is there something I’m forgetting?”

“Well, there are the three ads you’ve got due at the end of the week that you should probably work on.”

“They’ll get done.”

“And Lilly has a session this afternoon.”

Steve twisted to look over his shoulder at her, “It’s not her regular day.” James had been in charge of his sister’s entertainment that Sunday evening. Not knowing, he’d popped in their well-worn tape of _Snow White_   to watch after Peggy had situated them with a bowl of popcorn to share. “Oh. She seemed okay.”

“Just want to make sure.” He nodded, the gesture heavy with seriousness.

***

“Really, Papa?”

“Really.” James squeezed him around the waist quickly and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He kissed the top of Lilly’s head and then took off at a jog for the boys’ entrance. Steve stood and watched, making sure he made it inside the building before turning his attention back to the little girl beside him, bouncing with excitement.

He fixed the bow around her ponytail, the same red as her tights, and slipped the straps of Lilly’s backpack around his arm before he slid the shield out of the trunk of the wagon. “Can I carry it, _please?”_

“After we get inside. I gotta let Sister Alice know I’m visiting today.” It was too heavy for her. She’d carry it a few feet and then hand it back over.

Her eyes lit up and she skipped toward the office door, her hand in his. “You’re _really_ going to be my show-and-tell?”

“Uh huh.” Her eyes lit up with mischief just bordering on haughty satisfaction. He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing out loud, know exactly what was going through her little blonde head.

“Will you stay the _whole_ day?”

“We’ll see, mo leanbh.”

***

Dottie kept her face blank and her breathing even while her superiors laced into her. “You forget, I got you something much more valuable.” There had been a considerable amount of blood left on the floor where Rogers had hid with the child when all was said and done. It was a wonder he had lived. “We now have a nearly pure source with which to study Erskine’s serum to improve our own. We now know how far Carter and Rogers… how far SHIELD will go, how deep their loyalties run, what actions they’re willing to take even with the threat of international war. And we have an agent planted well within their circle of trust.” She rose from her seat and smoothed the front of her shirt. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a class to teach.” She turned on her heel and walked out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Bye, Bye, Birdie's_ first run was in the 1960-61 Broadway season. It won the Tony for Best Musical. I've got Angie realizing her dreams of being an actress and playing the role that was actually filled by Marijane Maricle.
> 
> Shooting was indeed an Olympic sport at the time this story is set as well as in games previous. The Paralymics, as I understand it, were originally developed for disabled vets. I thought, with Bucky not filling the role of legendary assassin in this particular universe, where would his skills best be used outside of SHIELD? As a world-class athlete and mentor, of course.
> 
> Remember the green tie incident in challenge five? That's where Tiny James' aversion to the color comes from.
> 
> After the war, uniform and parachute fabrics and military colors were abundant. People continued to make their own clothing for a period of time after rationing was over and the fabrics were cheap and readily available. I can see Steve making play clothes for his kids. The inspiration for Steve's making clothes and costumes for his kids comes from my own family and our multi-talented patriarch.
> 
> If anyone is wondering about the set-up of the Carter-Rogers household, since there've been questions about living arrangements in some of my other work, I picture it being something like Sherlock's Brooklyn brownstone in _Elementary_. Very spacious, lots of rooms, but not unreasonable for a family of four.
> 
> The Order of the Arrow is a Boy Scout honor society that's joined, from the way I understand it from friends who are Vigil Honor Arrowmen (Yes, I rolled my eyes too, go ahead, do it. You know you want to.), by invitation only. It's very involved. There's lots of ceremonies and this thing called an Ordeal where you have to be silent and fast and sleep by yourself and contemplate the universe. Tiny James needed some hobbies beside running his mouth and I needed to get him out of the house. Didn't think he'd enjoy a sleep-over like Lilly's.
> 
>  _Fantastic Four #1_ was published in November '61.
> 
> Hamilton Heights is a neighborhood in the north end of Manhattan. It was fairly heavily populated with Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish immigrants until they started leaving the area in favor of the suburbs in the '60s.
> 
> For the purposes of this story, I went with the comic timeline in respect to Natasha's being around. She was orphaned in '42, which would put 18ish years between then and this story so I'm estimating her age in early to mid-20s. Yelena Belova wasn't trained at the same time, to my knowledge, but I wanted more Widows. Niko Constantin was the sole male Red Room trainee and referred to as the Wolf Spider. In his adult life he's got a grudge against Bucky, who was one of his teachers.
> 
> I can't seem to find any solid information on when the Starks were married or for how long before MCUTony was born. So I'm hoping you all will suspend disbelief with me and if anyone knows, please share. Obviously, in this timeline Howard wasn't going to be guilty over not finding Steve, so I took some liberty with that plot point. I don't think it hurt the story.
> 
> The Wikis put Coulson at 50, so I've jumped the gun a little, but it was too hard to resist. There's very little information available on Mrs. Jarvis in the MCU. Jarvis met her in Budapest "before the war broke out," so I'm thinking it's more likely that she's Hungarian than Slovakian, so those are the verbs James has been practicing.
> 
> Steve and Peggy listen to [Venus by Frankie Avalon](https://youtu.be/fakpqLDEQAo) and [this is her dress in that scene](https://www.1stdibs.com/fashion/clothing/evening-dresses/chic-1960s-pauline-trigere-elegant-high-neck-black-wool-knit-60s-dress-lbd/id-v_483572/). And Peggy is talking about Egon Schiele, an Austrian painter who died somewhere around WWI. [This is the painting that they're talking about.](http://www.egon-schiele.net/Self-Portrait.jpg) The books they're talking about are collections of poetry by EE Cummings (of "may I feel, said he" fame for those Hiddleston fans) published in '50 and '58. The song Steve sings and dances with Peggy to is an Irish Child Ballad, _The Well Below the Valley/The Maid and the Palmer_. I first heard it in the movie _[The Magdalene Sisters](https://youtu.be/WxXFs8EL35o)_. The second is _Young Peggy (ballad 298)_. Sadly, I can't find that one online.
> 
> Steve is trying to stop the bleeding from his multiple GSWs by applying first a turniquet/direct pressure and then utilizing the pressure-point method. Dum fireman carries him, which is standard practice for soldiers in the field. In reality, even a single GSW to the thigh would more likely than not, be fatal. If the femoral artery is nicked, even assuming it's a clean shot, you'd bleed out in minutes, super soldier or not.


	12. Challenge Twenty-Nine: Bondage/Restraints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of things about being unceremoniously dumped in the future that Peggy has found she rather enjoys. Quite near the top of that list is the opportunity she and Steve have had to explore themselves and each other, very much enhanced by the wealth of information virtually at their fingertips. In the midst of all that exploration, Peggy's found she has a particular fondness for the texture of rope against her fingers and the color of it against Steve's skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jumping way ahead in the challenge list to answer a request! I think I had entirely too much fun with this one. Entirely too much. DommePeggy FTW?
> 
> Don't want to go as far as saying this one features "irresponsible" or "improper" BDSM dynamics in at least one scene. It's overall more of a getting to know likes/dislikes/limits/safety deal? As with all things Steve does, he dives in head first and it's up to Peg to be the responsible party and keep things in check. A lot of the D/s fic I've read features Peg as being very knowledgeable and in-charge and all of that and it's great and hot but they had to start somewhere, right? Everybody's gotta start somewhere. I'm also partial to defined but fluffy/happy dynamics. So, if you're looking for mean/forceful/very strict DommePeggy or hopelessly/helplessly SubSteve, forewarning, this is not your fic.
> 
> More sensory experience, less actual graphic sex?

The world had become a narrow, small space. Nothing more or less than the sum of his senses.

The vast expanse of space condensed down and shoved itself into the Earth's atmosphere. The Earth condensed to his country. Country condensed to state. To district. To neighborhood. To street. Building. Floor. Apartment. Down into the hallway just beyond his threshold. To the few feet of space around him, there on his knees on the high-polished hardwood floor. To his body.To his head.

The universe was an assault on his senses.

The ticking of the clock in the otherwise silent apartment, the sounds of traffic filtering into the open window. The smells of food warming. The heat the oven threw off. The rush of blood in his veins and the throb of his heart against his ribs. The sharp discomfort of his knees on the floor. The texture of his jeans and shirt against his skin. The weight of the shoes on his feet. The rush of air into his nose and mouth.The prickly coolness on his scalp with the gradual drying of his damp hair.

He drew air in and ignored the tick of the clock in favor of the throb of his heart-- _onetwothreefourfive._ He filled his lungs and held the breath in them-- _onetwothree...nineten._ He released the breath, emptying his body of air and sense of time and place-- _onetwothreefourfive._ Again and again until his heart seemed to suspend it's work and he might have been encased in ice for another decade without realizing it had happened.

Somewhere, tangled into the complex reality that had shrunk down and shoved itself into his head, there was a woman coming to him. She could pack everything in tighter or pitch it all out with a whispered instruction. Free him or bind him. Take the weight of his duty and the expectations of everyone around him and the press of what he'd lost and everything that he looked forward to off of his shoulders and turn him into a fathomless entity of  _feelingandbeingandwantingandrecievingand--_

The click of a key in the lock on the door at the end of the hall just a few feet away from the shell of himself that contained all of the weight of the outer reaches of space snapped him back into a fixed point of time and location and everything was less loud and less immediate and all that existed was the thunk of her heels on the floor and the glint of the soft light off the fabric of her dress and the curl of her hair and the warmth of her being.

The world had become a narrow, small space. Nothing more or less than the sum of his senses.

***

Peggy was keeping a running mental list of sorts of all the things that she liked about this side of the century, or rather, this new century.

She liked the solace that Steve’s small apartment in Washington offered. It was a trip to get there when she wished to visit, which was often, but it was lovely all the same. He was forever dropping hints, but as nice as it was to be with him, she had no immediate desire to move--or to move in with him.

She liked the independence of having her own space, of carving out a life for herself in the city in ways that hadn’t been possible in the time she’d lived there first. She liked the ability to come and go as she pleased, the ability to hop on a train or in a car and visit Steve or any of the other acquaintances she’d managed to make within SHIELD and within the city itself when and for as long as she wanted without the stress of anyone looking over her shoulder or threatening her with eviction for unladylike conduct or breaking curfew.

She liked the internet. She wondered what her old intelligence and communications teams might say if they saw it. She wondered how much easier it would have been to relay messages back and forth from double agents and informants. If her experiences now were any indication, it would have been far less thrilling, though far more safe. The availability of information was overwhelming and wonderful. Her smartphone had become her best friend, any curiosity that popped into her head could be popped into the search box in turn. She might have put Thompson in his place with far less effort with that wealth of information on her side. That was another thing the internet had provided her with, though, the knowledge that someone indeed had eventually put him in his place in the form of an old news article about his dismissal from service. Putting other operatives in unnecessary danger and shooting without thinking evidently had become increasingly frowned upon.

There were a thousand-and-one other things that she found herself appreciating about being dropped unceremoniously into the future, but it was the culmination of those things--the privacy of Steve’s home, the ease of mobility, the wealth of information at her fingertips--that presented her with one of the things quite near the top of her list.

During the course of her visits to Washington, particularly after arduous missions, Peggy discovered that she liked to push Steve’s buttons. She liked to reestablish some level of control over the direction that her life was taking in each small moment--to laugh in the face of the chaos, the lack of control, that some missions took a turn toward. In pushing Steve’s buttons she found that she was really pushing her own.

Pushing Steve’s buttons meant pushing his limits.

Limits for Steve meant new physical sensation or predicament. Feeling and doing things that he was never in a position to before the serum. Feeling and doing things that tested him in his present state. Feeling and doing things that took him out of his position of command and simply allowed him to float through existence for a little while.

With expanding limits and pushing buttons and the wonderful expanse of the internet, Peggy found something else she liked.

Handspun hemp rope. Dyed vibrant colors rather than plain, most preferably.

The varied blue hues against Steve’s flushed skin were, quite frankly, a thing of beauty.

“Hey, Peg.”

“Hello, darling.”

“I just signed fer a package for ya. Thought it was a little odd, ya know. You refusin’ ta move in here an’ all. Why would a package addressed to Margaret Carter be sent 'round here?”

“Because I had it sent there, of course.” He snorted and did a poor imitation. She rolled her eyes as his ludicrous accent. “May I ask who the sender is? It’s actually one of several packages you’ll be receiving on my behalf.” She listened to the sound of Steve putting the phone down and turning the box over. He rattled off the name on the return address as she tucked her overnight bag into the compartment above her seat. “I think you’ll want to open that up.”

Steve presumably switched the phone to speaker, the sound coming in much more clear then. She settled herself into her seat and closed her eyes, picturing him moving about. Crossing the kitchen in his bare feet. Opening the drawer that held utensils, pulling out a knife to slit the tape open. The paper packing from inside the box crinkled loudly, she imagined he put it down near or on top of the phone.

“I’m lookin’ at a bunch’a blue rope. I think they made a mistake.”

“How much?” She sat down in the window seat, smoothing her dress out and crossing her legs to settle in for the long ride.

“Five bundles of it.”

“Not a mistake at all. Happy accident, actually. It was supposed to be on back order. Didn’t expect to get all five at once. Barring incident or defect, I think they’ve just earned themselves a five star review.”

“What the heck’re you gonna do with a bunch’a blue rope?” His voice was closer. She imagined him putting the phone to his ear, a perplexed look on his brow and a downturn to his lips while he leaned back against the countertop.

“Steve, I’m going to need you to listen very carefully.”

“All ears.”

“I’ve just boarded a train at Pennsylvania Station.”

“Oh?”

“God-willing I’ll be with you in the next five hours.”

“Why do I get the impression it’ll be the longest five hours of my life?”

“You sound much less all ears and much more all mouth.” She waited a beat. Silence. “That should give you more than ample time to do whatever it is you have planned for the day that I’ve just thrown a monkeywrench into. I think I’d like dinner when I arrive. And a glass of wine would be lovely. Something sweet.” Peggy wasn’t much of a wine drinker, but she did enjoy it on occasion. Steve’s condition as it was, he’d grown particularly good at selecting things for their taste. She could practically feel his smirk through the phone as she spoke. She knew she sounded ridiculous, making demands such as she was. And if she was going to sound ridiculous, why not go right for the full Monty? “Are you still listening, Steve?”

“Mhmm.”

She lowered her voice, not that there were many people in her car or that they would hear her with their various devices and headphones. “I want you to take the rope and lay it out somewhere. Nice and visible. _Neatly._ I expect your person to be squared away. I’d like you to be freshly showered, I think. I like the scent of your soap. Hair wet. I do so love the way you look with it _wet.”_ He breathed in rather sharply. She waited a beat to draw out whatever he was feeling on the other end of the line. He was silent save for his more noticeable breathing. “Put the grey shirt on. You look nice in grey, makes your eyes stand out. And those blue jeans you thought drew too much attention to your behind. They actually draw just the right amount of attention to your behind.” She dropped her voice to a whisper, “Round. Tight. Begging to be struck.”

They’d discovered, over their course of experimentation in limits and sensations and predicaments, that Steve liked impact. Hard, soft, sharp, flat. Didn’t matter. All of it made his toes curl because he simply _felt_ everything very keenly and pushing him over that edge made Peggy’s toes curl. She hadn’t yet put him over her knee, that just felt entirely too silly, big and heavy as he was; but he’d looked so perfect barely leaned forward _just so_ over the little dining table gripping the edges of the thing.

The first time was illuminating.

She’d given him a good swat over the top of his tactical pants that she was sure he hardly felt with the thick weave of the fabric and the protective layer beneath. He didn’t always wear the Stars and Stripes when they went out on a mission. Sometimes stealth was more beneficial than flamboyant intimidation tactics. He’d stepped in front of a bullet she very well could have sustained with the Kevlar gear she was sporting . She’d dug the round out of his shoulder and patched him up in the back of the quinjet that came to extract them at the end of it all, skills like basic field medicine something that never quite left you when the war ended. It had been a small caliber, not too deep. She cleaned it out and slapped a bandage on, perhaps being slightly more rough than she really needed to be. He may have a habit of healing more efficiently than the Average Joe, but why sustain a gunshot wound when she could have dealt very easily with a little bruising?

Peggy wasn’t sure why the notion to spank him had popped into her head while they had a loud row across the back seat of a cab after they’d submitted their reports and the infirmary checked his wound over just to be sure. The driver did his best to pretend he didn’t exist and Peggy gave him a handsome tip for his troubles. Steve had outright laughed when they got up to his apartment and she announced she was going to give him a good licking since nothing else was going to get through his exceptionally thick skull. He laughed until she gripped his chin and pulled him down to eye level and told him very firmly that he was to lean over the table.

“This is fuckin’ ridiculous, Peggy,” he spat out. Steve stared daggers up at the framed poster on the wall through his eyelashes, his expression brooding. He flinched when she hit him with her palm and she was quite convinced it was more show or instinct than anything else.

She stopped counting when her arm started to get tired. His head dropped down. He pulled in slow, steady breaths. The angry color that had flared in his cheeks was spread down the back of his neck and his ears had gone the deep red of beets at the farmers’ market that they tended toward when he was bashful.

Her own anger, she realized, had been not anger at all. More fear or desperation--at loss of control over the situation, at the thought of him being needlessly injured. It wasn’t as if he was immortal. He often forgot that. Or outright ignored it.

Peggy wiped the wet off of her cheeks where her frustration had manifested in tears and stepped up close behind him. She laid her head against the dip between his shoulders and wrapped her arms around him, hugging his torso close against hers. He shuddered, tension in his body seeming to melt away with her proximity.

“’m’sorry. Just can’t stand the thought’a you gettin’ hurt. I shouldda listened.” He was quiet and earnest. “It’s barely even sore.”

“Your arse or your shoulder?”

He laughed, exhausted sounding. “Both.”

His shirt, Kevlar for both of them long since abandoned back at headquarters, was rough against her face, the same durable weave as the pants. She took a deep breath and let it out, readjusting her embrace. “Do as Peggy says. Wasn’t that what you were always telling the boys? Can’t seem to follow that instruction yourself though.” He apologized again and she shushed him. The position was awkward, but he was warm and solid and he was more than convenient to lean against while she let herself begin to feel her own exhaustion.

Her fingers dropped to his belt, gripping it the way he always seemed to when he had no place else to put his hands.

He groaned openly when she rubbed her palm against his obvious erection.

“Did you enjoy that?” Her tone was honest and inquiring, no accusation in it.

“No... yes?” She leaned further against him, hand running down between his legs to yank gently against the crotch of his pants and make the seam rub against his testicles. He groaned again and gulped down breath. “It felt... it felt good. Not really the part you ‘n me bein’ angry and you decidin’ to spank me like I was a freakin’ disobedient... _boy._ ”

“I wasn’t angry.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. I was frightened. I don’t want to see you hurt, either.”

“I w’scared, too. Haven’t had a job go sour like that in a while.”

He shifted his weight gingerly, none too subtly rubbing himself into her hands. “Keep telling me how it felt.”

“Weird. Embarrassing. But I started countin’ in my head and it started feelin’ good.” She found his crown beneath her blindly groping fingers and tugged at fabric to rub against it. He made a vaguely kitten-like sound that made her want to laugh at the absurdity of the entire scene. “I... I... Oh _god,_ Peg, if you keep that up I’m gonna pop.” She moved her hands up to his hips, pressing firm circles into his flesh with her thumbs. “You want me’da keep goin’?”

“Yes. It started feeling good. Then what?” She rose up on her toes and craned her neck to reach over to plant a kiss against the back of his.

“I dunno how to describe it. Felt... solid. Real.” His whisper was barely audible between the echoing clicks of the clock on the wall in the spartan living room. “’m I a dope fer wishin’ you’d drop my drawers?”

“How many did you count?”

“Only fifteen. Couldn’ decide if you were huffin’ n’ puffin’ because you were tired or cryin’. Thought either way best bet was ta stay put. I think I might’a missed a few though.”

“Would you like me to hit you again?” He answered in the affirmative. “Harder?” He tensed for a moment and then nodded. “I need to hear you say it.”

“Yes.”

Peggy reached around him again and unfastened his belt. She drew it out of the loops slowly and draped it around her neck, hesitating for a moment before unbuttoning his pants and pulling down the fly. She hooked her fingers around the layers encasing his body--tactical pants, protective padding, underwear--and did her best to ease them all down at once. They sat high on his waist with his top layers tucked in neatly. He sighed in relief when she pulled them down, leaving them bunched up just below the swell of his behind and letting his hard cock bob free, curved up toward his belly.

She caressed his skin, warm under her palm but covered in gooseflesh with nerves. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder, taking a long minute to just trace comforting patterns with her fingertips. She pulled the woven cloth belt off of her neck and doubled it. She let him feel it against his skin.

“Holy moly.”

She laughed, “If it’s too much, you have to tell me, Steve. You tell me to stop.” He nodded. “Promise me.”

“I promise.”

He gasped and clenched his cheeks when she struck him, his eyes wide with surprise. They pressed forward until Steve was a trembling mess with a bright red arse, a barely visible stippling of purple in one spot, and the tabletop was sticky with spend. They folded into each other on the couch, pausing in their kissing and touching only to answer the door for the takeout man.

Late that night, Peggy couldn’t get the sight and sound of him out of her head. The way he’d reached his climax without having been touched. She slipped carefully out of bed and into the bathroom to take care of her own need. She required some touching.

From there, their experimenting and exploring expanded.

He also liked heat. A candle flame held too close, a drop of wax dripped down on the skin. Quite oppositely, a bit of cold made him jump out of his skin with panic while he tried to endure and she couldn’t have that. He liked the contrast between hard and soft and rough and smooth.

She liked the power of putting her fingers in his mouth and he liked the sensation of having them ‘round the back.

She liked it when he was trying to make himself as small and gentle as he could and for someone who found it so hard to follow orders from anyone else he certainly seemed eager enough to follow any of hers.

So when Peggy found a website full of beautiful fibers with glowing reviews from ladies who seemed to be excited by the same things she was increasingly aware that she was, it sparked an interest. It would be a fitting combination of a number of things they both enjoyed. Trussing him up, decorating him with complicated looking knots and loops for function or show--the pull of his muscles and tendons under his skin and against the fiber--the way she expected his mouth would open and his eyelashes would flutter and his skin would flush--it all fueled her imagination and kept her both satisfied and on edge while she waited for her package to arrive and studied every forum and blog and tutorial video she could get her hands on.

“ _Peg._ ”

“Yes, darling?”

He just breathed heavily for a moment. “Anythin’ else you want? Particulars?”

“You waiting for me on your knees.” She laughed to let him know she was only fooling around.

“I... I meant for dinner.”

“Surprise me. Oh! Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep the kitchen shears handy.”

“What for?”

“In case I need to cut you out in a hurry.”

Peggy was tired and cranky by the end of her train ride. The car she’d seated herself in hadn’t stayed as gloriously uncrowded as it had been at the beginning of her trip for very long. There had been a screaming child, a man in an ill-fitting suit arguing on his cellular phone, people crammed into nearly every seat, and to top it off, a perfect stranger had dosed off on her shoulder. She’d been quite concerned that the sleeping gentleman had, in fact, died. He’d been far too still and his breathing far too quiet while he rested against her. He’d made a face and said something nasty in German when she patted his arm and requested he move so that she might disembark. She narrowed her eyes and asked him if his mother knew he spoke to ladies that way and left him gaping and blinking as she moved toward the doors and freedom from the crowded train.

Some things never changed. Public transportation was one of them.

It was another few minutes in the back of a cab to reach Steve’s apartment building, she shot off a text message to let him know she was close.

She passed his pretty blonde neighbor on the stairs. She appeared to be on her way down to the laundry room, basket full of hospital scrubs under her arm. Peggy liked the girl well enough, but her smile gave Peggy a nagging sense of deja vu. She learned the girl’s name was Kate and told Steve that she thought Kate might just be able to hear him when he yowled particularly loudly or the headboard bumped against wall. Peggy didn’t believe it herself--it wasn’t a new building, but renovations in the last few years had shored up the once paper-thin walls and floors so no one would be disturbed by neighbors playing loud music or walking overhead. The neighborhood itself was on the more exclusive side, plenty of security by virtue of it. The privacy that the building afforded was one of the reasons Steve had ultimately chosen it. The notion of being heard had made an impression on Steve all the same and Peggy enjoyed watching him fight to stay quiet while they played.

It felt like she’d reached the Promised Land when she fished her copy of his key back out of her pocket and slipped it into the lock. Her breath hitched, stopping her mid-sentence when she came through the door. “That was by far the worst experience on a passenger train I have ever had. Was the world always this crowded?” She dropped her bag near the door, entirely done with it, and started to peel her jacket off to hang on the peg. “Whatever you’ve got in that oven smells divine. I--”

Peggy finally looked up, or rather, down. He was in her favorite grey dress shirt, navy colored waistcoat with a subtle red stripe she’d bought for his birthday buttoned neatly over it. His hair, kept longer than she ever remembered it even when time and someone handy with a pair of scissors were scarce in the field, was just damp enough to stay put where it was combed back. His arms were tucked behind him, giving him the look of being at parade rest right there on his knees. His thighs strained slightly against his jeans, so hard to fit his shape properly in any garment not made specifically for him.

Steve looked up at her through heavy-lidded eyes, his chest expanding and deflating very deliberately. She asked him what he was doing on the floor.

“You said you wanted me kneeling.”

“I was only teasing! That must be uncomfortable. How long have you been there?”

He tilted his head to the side, eyes falling and making him look a bit forlorn. “Only since yer message came though. ’m okay.” His mouth curved up, “Dinner’s ready, just keepin’ it warm in th’oven.” He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth for a moment. “Yer upset. I’m sorry. Shouldda known you were jokin’.” He made a move to get to his feet and Peggy put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“You’re out in space, my darling. What are you thinking about?”

He tentatively put his arms around her, shuddering and sighing and lowering himself down onto his heels and resting his forehead against her hip. “All that rope. It’s inside, on the coffee table. Neat, like y’asked. And the shears’re there. Wasn’t sure if they’d work; took the knife outta my tac kit, too.”

She kneaded his shoulders gently, “So thoughtful. I’ll be sure to be more specific next time, yes?” He nodded. She stroked a hand through his hair. “And you’ll be sure to make sure something is really an order?”

“Yes, Peg.” She helped him up to give him a proper hello-kiss. “I really didn’t mind, y’know.” He led her to the kitchen and started pulling dishes out of the oven. “Bein’ on my knees. It felt good.”

Peggy frowned, wondering if she should reconsider the plans she’d hatched for that weekend. The floaty, faraway expression in Steve’s eyes concerned her. “But you were alone, that worries me.” She took the plates he’d loaded up from his hands and put them back down on the counter. She noticed it often. When they played their games of limits and when he was left without solid distraction for too long. “It’s not safe.” She looked at him hard, trying to impress her point. “You go somewhere else, you know? It’s not as if I’m afraid your going to burn the place down, but you can be careless. I don’t want you going off in your head while I’m not around to pull you back.”

He looked down at his feet and nodded. “Alright.”

“Promise me.”

“Promise.”

She cupped his face in her palm, stroking his cheek with her thumb. “Now tell me what’s on the menu.” He smiled and picked up the plates again.

Dinner was delicious. Steve had gotten quite good at a few dishes and absolutely excellent when presented with red potatoes, garlic, oil, and rosemary. Peggy stayed very determinedly rubbish in the kitchen.They laughed and sipped chilled mead he’d picked up somewhere on a lark, tickled that the label featured Thor’s hammer and joking that maybe an Asgardian concoction might succeed in making him well and drunk. Peggy fed him bits of crispy potato and leaned in to take care of an errant smudge of olive oil on his lips. Dessert was raspberries and cream eaten like foolish children off of fingers with Steve in his ugly, lumpy chair and Peggy curled into his lap while the record player turned.

“With some lead, she shot him dead! His honkin’ days are done!” Peggy outright giggled when Steve smeared a dot of cream on the end of her nose and sucked it off sloppily. The needle on the record strayed toward the center, the recording at its end. “You’re very silly tonight.” He shrugged and twisted around to put the plastic dish down on the floor beside the chair.

“Maybe I seem silly ‘cause yer so serious.” She pursed her lips. “You can’t have planned to come for the weekend just ‘cause that package came.” His eyes flicked to the coils of blue rope on the table and back to her. She told him the post had sent her an email about its arrival. “Can’t be all.” Peggy answered him with several minutes of stubborn silence.

“I met Gabriel’s grandson.”

“Jones had kids?”

Peggy nodded and explained that he indeed had and that someone had put the bee in Antoine Triplett’s bonnet to join SHIELD. He’d graduated from the academy--goodness, gracious there was an entire _academy_ for new agents now!--rather high in his class. Was as good a field agent as he was a medic. His clearance level seemed to be an indication of some degree of skill and trust.

“He’s sweet. Called me _ma’am_ and said his grandfather filled his head with all sorts of stories.” She couldn’t keep the edge of longing out of her voice. “I’ve got a mind to request his aid on the next field trip we get shipped out on. See what Jones passed on.”

Steve’s smile had a bit of a sad droop to it. “Hey, yer here now. We’re here.”

She snuggled down into the crook of his neck and laid her lips against his pulse. “Wouldn’t trade it. Not for the world on a string.” Steve flipped he record over with care not to jostle her around. At some point during the second B-side track, his breathing grew deep and his arms circled her less firmly. She craned her neck up to put her lips nearer to his ear. “I want to tie you up.”

“You testin’ if I’m asleep? May be old, technic’ly, but I’m not inna dozin’ off with no warning just yet.”

“Not testing. Quite serious.”

“You know what yer doin’?”

“I believe so. I may have practiced on myself once or twice.”

“And ya didn’t even let me in on the fun?”

“Perhaps if you’re good, I’ll let you see.”

“You gonna tie yourself up for me?”

“No. It was just for practicing knots. I believe the young people call it a selfie.”

“Oh! Dirty pi’chers! Agent Carter, I think that might just be against regulations.”

“Fuck the regulations, Captain.”

“Rather fuck you.”

She laughed. “Not yet.” She slipped off of his lap and crossed the small room to the table. She ran her fingers over the smooth rope, the texture sparking something electric in her. “Shirt.”

“Off?” She nodded, if he was ready. “Yes, ma’am.”

He stood and began to unbutton his waistcoat. “Here or...?” Peggy told him they’d be staying in the living room. She didn’t want things to move too far too fast, didn’t want to set the path in the direction of losing him to sensation too quickly.The waistcoat came off and then the shirt, both draped carefully over the arm of his chair.

Peggy picked up the first coil of rope, weighing it in her hands and steadying herself.

“Peg?” He had a hand in his pocket and the other scratching at the back of his head, a lopsided smile on his face. “Do you want me to take anything else off?”

“Not yet.”

“How... how d’ya want me?”

She pursed her lips and looked him over. It would be awkward to have to reach up and walk around him repeatedly. “Sit. The ottoman, there.” He plunked down heavily on the footrest after he dragged it away from the chair. She found the center of the rope and held it doubled over. “How do you feel?” She walked around behind him, holding the loop with one hand and feeding the length around his chest with the other. His knee was bouncing rapidly.

“Nervous. Good nervous.”

She fed the line through the loop and back around his chest in the opposite direction, repeating the pattern thrice more. She tested the slack, slipping two fingers beneath the rope and moving them around. “How does it feel?”

He took a deep breath, holding it in for a moment, his skin bulging ever so slightly over the edges of the neat band of blue with the expansion. He exhaled slowly. His tongue darted out and wet his lips. “Good.”

“Not too snug?”

He moved, shifting around a bit, curling his body over to the side. “Not at all. Keep goin’.”

Peggy bent down and kissed his shoulder lightly. She patted his bicep, “Arms up.” He lifted his arms hesitantly. “Higher.” He made an annoyed sound and settled on putting his hands up behind his head. She fed the line up under his arm and around the top of his chest, repeating the loop again in the opposite direction to frame his pectorals in blue. “Still alright?” He drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Speak.”

“Yes.”

***

Steve focused on the softness of Peggy’s touch, gentle prodding when she wanted him to shift or tilt or move his arms. He focused on the zip of the working end of the rope as it flew over his skin, the slight burn of it when she made a new loop. He focused on the weight of the rope against his skin, the tightness of the bands across his torso and chest. It was almost comforting. A bit like being hugged.

Peggy knotted the rope over itself at the center of his back and flipped it up over his shoulder. He watched while she walked around in front of him and fed the working end down toward the center of his chest and looped it back up through the top of the band she’d first created.

He grinned up at her, “I think this’d look swell on you.”

“In your dreams, perhaps.” She smiled and laughed and said if he was very good she might let him truss her up one day as well. Perhaps. “Arms down.”

She made a few passes up and down over his sternum, making it look a bit like he was wearing a lady’s swim top. He felt his face grow warm with embarrassment at the silliness of the thought, trying not to let himself be pulled too far out of the moment. She pulled the line up over his still bare shoulder to finish the straps.

She moved behind him again and spent a few minutes loping up and down and back and forth, creating something that felt like it had to be purely decorative and maybe just a little to make him squirm. The rope appeared over his shoulder once more and Peggy stepped in front of him.

“Status report, Captain.”

“Little impatient, but doin’ fine.”

“Very good.” Her face was a solid mask of concentration. She looped the end through the band at the top of his chest and flipped it to the back once more, repeating the pattern on the other side. She grew quiet, weaving the ends back and forth, making a solid-feeling braid of rope down the middle of his back. “Finished. You can breathe alright?” He took a few deep breaths to demonstrate. “And move?” He swung his arms and arched back and forth. “Not too tight?”

“Not at all.”

“How do you feel?”

He considered the question for a moment. “Secure.”

“Good.” She smiled and settled herself on the edge of the coffee table, a sparkle in her eyes that looked to lie somewhere between adoration and hunger--Steve perfectly unaware that he looked at her much the same way. He sat under her scrutiny, trying to decide whether to relax or to straighten his spine and present himself properly.

“Is this it?” He grinned and puffed out his chest, conscious of the way his his muscle bulged against the bonds. “Just gonna oogle me?”

“For a bit.” She hunched forward, crossed her legs to lean an elbow on. He relaxed a bit, concentrating on the way the weave of the fibers felt against his skin, imagining he might count each tiny strand if he focused hard enough. Peggy ran her fingers back and forth over her bottom lip. “I think I might tidy up. We seem to have left a bit of a mess.” She gestured over her shoulder toward the dining table.

He watched in mild disbelief as she rose fluidly from her seat on the edge of the table and walked away. She made it quite clear that she wasn’t coming back over, methodically stacking the dishes from the table and bringing them into the kitchen to clean by hand rather than loading into the dishwasher.

Steve let his eyes close, hands laid on his knees. He blocked out the sounds of traffic from beyond the open window and the sound of his neighbor’s light laughter as she came up the stairs, presumably talking on her phone. He focused on the soft tinkling of ceramic plates and steel utensils against the the sink, the gush of water from the faucet, the clunk of Peggy’s heels against the wood floor approaching and receding again after the wet slap of a rag against the tabletop. All the while Steve’s heart pounded in his chest, thrumming against the precise loops of rope. Blood rushed in his ears. His stomach fluttered the way it did just before he jumped out of a plane. He drew in breath, held it, and let it out slowly while he counted heartbeats in his head. Again. Again. The rush of blood quieted, the pound of his heart slowed. Faint whiffs of oil and garlic and spice carried from the kitchen where Peggy was presumably packing leftovers into containers. The jars and bottles on the shelves of the refrigerator door rattled when she opened and closed it.

Her heels clunked across the floor once more and his head was filled with the smell of her, lingering dinner and desert over the fading scent of something called _Besame_ , a perfume he’d picked up on a return trip to some terrifying store called _Sephora_ Peggy had just about dragged him into looking for a match to her trademark shade of red lipstick. They’d found the shade in the same brand the perfume came from. The smell had made them both teary and nostalgic. She’d declined to purchase it herself, insisting only the lipstick and a powder that went on her face and smelled very faintly of violets were a necessity, but been quietly pleased when he slid the simple bottle across the table at dinner one night.

Steve leaned into her touch, fingers cool and damp from the washing against his cheek. Her hands moved over the rope, tracing the lines of it, putting pressure on it slipping her fingers under it. He shivered at the sharp sensation of her fingernails gliding against his skin as she tested the rope’s slack again and again, making sure no pulse points or nerves were particularly compromised.

***

Steve made a pleased sound when she pressed her lips to his forehead, that tiny kitten-like mewl that always made the entire thing feel slightly ridiculous. His lashes fluttered, though his eyes remained closed when she settled beside him on the ottoman. She turned his face carefully toward her, kissing him sweetly. He opened his eyes with a lazy smile and that faraway quality that both worried and excited her.

“How are you feeling?”

She’d watched him carefully, listened to the pattern of his breathing and the soft noises he made when he moved while she went about the business of cleaning up their dinner service and putting away food. She knew he’d gone off to that place in his head where there was nothing more to the world than what his immediate senses could offer.

“Good. Real good.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want more?”

His eyes searched her face. He opened and closed his mouth. Looked down at his hands before raising them, offering his wrists to her. “Yes. Are we gonna go inside now?”

Peggy laid a kiss against his palm. “Do you think I mean to tie you to the bed?” He nodded. “Maybe later, if you’d really like it.”

“I think so. I liked it when y’covered my eyes with yer scarf last time. I like this. Feels like that’s what’s suppose’ta come next.” He pressed his hands forward again.

“Not now, darling. Something else first.” She kissed him again and guided his hands back down to his lap. “Take off your pants.”

Some level of clarity snapped into his countenance, his hands moving to cover his crotch. “No.” Peggy cocked her head to the side in curiosity. It wasn’t often that Steve declared something off limits so quickly. “I’ve clicked on my share’a links b’for the techs explained what spam was. I’ve seen the things people who like it rough are into.”

Peggy held back a laugh. “I’ve got no intention knotting up your bits, Steve.”

“Oh.”

“I just want to,” she stroked his thigh, “decorate you some more.” She slapped the thigh playfully. “Now off with the pants, if you please.”

His face flushed with color and he bent down to unlace his shoes and set them aside. He was always so incredibly careful with his clothes. She suspected it may have something to do with his experiences with poverty, rationing after that. Even with his living now, he was still the same. He thought no one knew, but one of the boxes he’d donated to his parish just before moving had been filled to the brim with clothes that appeared nearly brand new.

Steve unbuckled his belt and stepped out of his pants, folding them up and placing them with the discarded shirt and waistcoat. His hands hesitated at the waistband of his colorful shorts. His eyes slid down to her.

“You can leave them on if you like. Skin ‘round there is rather sensitive. Wouldn’t want you unnecessarily uncomfortable.” She reached over to pick up the second coil of rope. “Are you ready?”

He ran his fingers over the bottom-most band of rope on his chest. His body tightened, expression filled with longing. “Yes.” Peggy stepped up in front of him, pulled him down into a kiss, asked him if he was sure. They could stop whenever he wanted. He didn’t even have to wait to be untied. The shears and utility knife were right there, right within reach. All he had to do was say the word and they’d stop. He nodded, “Tesseract and it’s off. I know. I wanna keep going.”

Peggy doubled the rope and held the loop just over his navel. She wrapped it around and pulled it through, repeating the pattern she’d first created around his torso, checking and rechecking the slack before tying a knot though the last loop. “How does it feel?”

He frowned and bent and twisted, filled his belly with air and let it out. “Tighter, but okay.”

“Legs apart.”

His eyes widened for a second and he spread his legs. She moved behind him, laying a kiss to his shoulder, and reached around to separate the working strands and pull them down between his legs, keeping them close to the creases of his groin, and up across his buttocks to loop through the waistband at his hips and down the front once more and repeating the loops. “If anything gets tingly, you’ll tell me, yes?”

“Good tingly?”

“Limbs falling asleep tingly. Strikes me that I probably should have said that earlier.”

Steve laughed, “My arms’re awake, don’t worry.”

He groaned openly when she pressed her palm into his crotch and rubbed, “Other things awake as well?”

“Gettin’ there,” he said breathlessly. He moved his hands over hers, canting his hips forward.

Peggy yanked her hands away and swatted his. When he made no indication he planned on moving his own hands, though they and his hips had stilled, she gave his rump a good swat. “Keep touching and I shall stop entirely.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He folded his arms behind his back. “You didn’t mention there’d be no touchin’, though.”

“I am mentioning it now. For the time being at least.” He sighed frustratedly and she recommenced her ropework.

The lines fed around the tops of his thighs, snugged right up under his cheeks, making several passes before looping the ends up and knotting them off, pulling the lines down his front toward those around his legs.

Peggy studied her work, running her fingers beneath the lines, tugging and prodding. “How does it feel?”

His fingers twitched. He shifted his hips. Picked his legs up, the cords of muscle bulging and straining against the rope. “Nice.” Color bloomed once again on his cheeks. It spread to his ears and down the back of his neck. His cock twitched. She sat down in his chair to survey her work, utterly pleased with herself. She held in a snicker at the stark contrast between the bright fuchsia shorts and the saturated blue rope wound around him, the bulge of his erection framed neatly and particularly entertaining to look at. He seemed not to notice her amusement, focused solely on her inquiry. His legs and biceps tensed and relaxed. “Can... can I touch now?”

“No.”

“But, I--”

“No.” He drew in a shaky breath, lips parted and eyes heavy. “I shall tell you when, what, and whom you may touch.” She waited for him to respond, a simple nod acknowledgment enough for her at the moment. “Move the ottoman out of the way.” She passed the clothing draped over the arm of the chair to him to tuck out of the way as well. She pointed to the floor at her feet and fished the cushion out from behind her. “Knees.”

He took the cushion and placed it down on the floor, arranging himself to kneel on it. His hands seemed to go behind his back again automatically. He looked up at her, waiting for further instruction.

Possibilities scurried through her head.

Her feet ached. Shoes weren’t what they used to be, no longer constructed with care and made to last. Her calves were moist with sweat inside the tall boots. She could ask him to remove the shoes, rub her feet. He was excellent at that. Credited to providing the service to a hardworking mother who insisted it wasn’t necessary. He’d gotten very silly the last time, though, and had decided it was the perfect moment to see if she liked having her toes sucked as much as her fingers. The answer was a resounding _no._ She wasn’t fond of the lingering sticky feel of saliva between her toes and it just very plainly felt odd. She’d made him brush his teeth twice before she allowed him to kiss her again.

She could just have him remove her shoes. Then she could rub his cock with her feet through that god-awful pair of shorts. She wondered how he’d feel about that while she otherwise ignored him. His laptop was nearby. She could peruse a few of her favorite blogs to come up with another use for the remaining coils of rope, or sign into the SHIELD intranet and review field reports or submit the request for a new service arm she kept forgetting about. She could do that with her shoes on as well, she supposed.

She could make him recite something. A long poem, perhaps. In a funny accent. Or sing the alphabet backwards. Or count to some randomly chosen number in French or Russian or German. He did know a smidge of Italian, mostly dirty words and phrases Barnes had taught him if memory served. Something to divert his focus.

She could make him touch himself while she watched. He was always self conscious about masturbating when she asked him to do it, not as much if it happened on the course of natural progression of things in bed or if she caught him in the act in the shower. Being on his knees, tied up as he was, it could be interesting.

Peggy frowned inwardly. Absorbed as she was in making sure he was safe and secure, she’d very much forgotten that the whole thing was about her own pleasure as well. He did look very lovely. And she had been quite right about the way the color of the rope would look against his skin. Warmth settled over her as she watched him and wondered what he was thinking. He was inhaling and holding his breath and exhaling slowly, possibly trying to ignore or get rid of his erection.

She’d said not to touch, but she didn’t want the predicament gone completely. That just would not do.

The record finished. She moved the needle and replaced it with a new one, something brassy that she remembered hearing at a club but couldn’t quite place. Slow and vampy. Something to pair with bourbon and red lips that were just a shade too dark and shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows.

He ran his tongue out over his bottom lip.

Peggy pushed herself closer to the edge of the chair. “I want your mouth.”

***

Steve nodded in assent and started to lean forward, working out how he was going to get under that dress. “Can I?” He unfolded his arms from behind his back. She nodded and lounged back in the chair.

Her thighs were smooth and warm under his palms, the silk of the skirt flowing like cool water over the backs of his hands as he pushed it up. He moved his fingertips up, nearly to the top, then back down to the knees. She let him ease them apart and he leaned forward, leaning his cheek against the inside of her leg. She laughed, high and light, when he deliberately batted his eyelashes to tickle her. She stretched her arms up over her head and let them fall again. He surged forward, pressing a noisy kiss to the seam of her soft cotton panties. It was his turn to laugh when she snorted in amusement and picked up the hem of her skirt and threw it over his head.

“Peg, I think the power went out. It’s real dark in here all of a sudden.” She laughed harder, the sound vibrating down the length of her. “I think we should call the super. Ya think it’s the whole buildin’ or just us? Pretty sure I paid the bill.”

Her laughter turned into pleased gasps and sighs when he pressed his face into her again, swiping at the fabric between her legs with his tongue and breathing in deeply, savoring the scent of her.

Steve moved his hands up to the waistband of her panties, smiling to himself when she lifted her hips obligingly to allow their removal. He grinned and winked and she rolled her eyes when he reappeared from beneath her skirt to pull the panties down and off of her legs. She raised a knee, pointed the toe. He took the hint to unzip the boot. Her skin was clammy and sticky, she sighed in relief when her foot emerged from the shoe and he removed the other.

He spent a moment prodding and kneading her calves with his thumbs and knuckles. Her eyelashes fluttered and she smiled dreamily, sinking down further into the chair. The movement rucked her skirt up farther, pushed her hips into a more convenient alignment.

Steve kissed his way from the inside of her knee to the top of her leg, picking it up and carefully putting it over the arm of the chair, hooking his arm under her thigh and gripping the creamy flesh. Turning his attention to the opposite thigh, he traced the pearly line of a scar she’d yet to tell him the story of with the tip of his tongue.

“Steve.”

***

He was always enthusiastic when he had his head between Peggy’s thighs, enthusiasm not at all serving to make him sloppy or careless. Instead, it made him incredibly perceptive, attentive to every vocal and physical cue. His devotion to her pussy let her think about other things.

Things like the way his shoulder strained under the straps she’d created. The way his waist nipped in, already narrow proportions accentuated with the band she’d woven. The way his arse clenched and relaxed when he shifted his balance, the rope running across it on either side indenting his flesh. How he alternately tucked his toes down to balance or curled them up in apparent pleasure.

Peggy set to work, a lark of her own to thwart his efforts at self control. He gasped, surprise and frustration rising to the surface as he sputtered against her, his grip on her thigh tightening. She pressed the top of her foot up into his crotch, gently, massaging his testicles through the fabric of his shorts.

***

He’d gotten a handle on it. He really had. Then she’d gone and just absolutely shattered what little bit of control he had with that devilish foot of hers.

He had a mind to abandon the task at hand and bite those toes. The only thing stopping him was the notion that she’d order him off to brush his teeth--her selective aversion to having her feet touched both amusing and maddening. He liked her feet. They were a complete contradiction, dainty and shapely in spite of the time they spent in wet boots on hard ground covered in weeping blisters just like the rest of the boys on the front.

As it was, he picked his battles to his best benefit. Her thighs were tensing and relaxing, her breath coming in quick bursts through her nose above him, the force of it ruffling his hair. She was close to the edge.

So he pulled back, a broad flat swipe of his tongue over her outer lips, her hair tickling his face as he went, and set to peppering her thigh with short, smacking kisses.

She made a displeased sound above him and squirmed, pressing her hips down into the chair. “You’ll pay for that.”

He grinned up at her, “Will I?”

“As soon as I think of how.”

“You do that,” He chuckled and moved back toward her sex, nudging her folds apart with tongue and nose to suck gently at her clitoris.

She raced toward climax, bucking her hips back and forth in tiny motions. Her hands found his hair, gripping it tightly and pulling him in as close as she physically could, making his task difficult.

Steve made himself slow down, trying to draw it out, make it as fulfilling for each of them as he could manage.

Peggy’s toes scraped at the floor, searching for purchase. He caught her ankle gently, placing her foot on his thigh. Her toes curled tightly, digging into his flesh.

The world began to drop away again when he pulled her draped leg down over his shoulder. Or really, the world condensed very quickly down into what was immediately before him.

The foot on his thigh.

The leg over his shoulder, knee bent tight, heel rubbing up and down over the loops of rope at his waist. Pulling him in. Barricading him into the microcosm that bounded inside the chair she was sitting in and the pillow under his knees.

The fist in his hair, yanking tight. The burn at his scalp.

The scent of her, so up-close. The texture of hair and skin and slick arousal against his face and on his tongue. The sounds of her breath, her pleasure, his own.

The trembling hand searching for a place to hold. Scratching and pulling at his ear, cupping his jaw, directing his ministrations where she wanted them.

The tug and pull of the bindings around the tops of his thighs. The band around his belly holding him like a steady arm. The press of the lines down across his ass. The way they pulled at his skin, spreading him apart when he dipped his back or adjusted his balance.

Peggy leaned forward, her body a shell around him, hair tickling his back where it fell. Her searching hand landed on his shoulder, fingers curling under the rope, shaking as they yanked. Jolts ran down his arm into his own fingers as the lines lost their slack under his arm.

Her orgasm was quiet and controlled, coaxed along with the stroke of his fingers against her calf, trying to get her to relax the tight muscle and relieve the discomfort of her toes in his thigh.

She did relax, slowly, rolling her spine up one vertebra at a time until she was leant back against the chair again. She let go of his hair, smiling dreamily and patting it back down, pulling him up with the fingers still gripping the shoulder strap.

Steve gently dislodged himself from beneath her leg to follow her wordless direction. Knee balanced on the edge of the seat between her legs, he cupped her head in his hands, tipping her face up to kiss.

“Consider yourself forgiven, she murmured into the kiss.

“Thought I could change yer mind.”

***

His face and chest were flushed with color, that floaty expression on his face. Gone but not too far. The rope beneath her fingers was warm from the heat of his skin. Peggy stretched and moved to the side to allow him room on the chair.

“We should get you out of those.”

“’m okay.”

“I don’t want your circulation interrupted, Steve.”

“Soon. Not yet.”

“A few moments then. Shall we go inside? You can stretch out. I might return the favor.” She waggled her eyebrows dramatically and he grinned, getting up to help her stand on slightly wobbly legs.

They tumbled into bed, Peggy well sated with Steve pliant and quiet and luxuriating in the kisses she pressed to his skin while he ran his fingers over each line of rope.

“I like this.”

“I can tell.” She slipped her hand down, palming him. Her eyes slid down the planes of his body, her fingers sliding into the fly of his shorts to expose him. The muscles in his stomach fluttered and clenched, his belly filled with air and bulged against the coils of rope. “Be still.”

He closed his eyes and nodded, one hand coming to rest beside his head on the pillow and the other gripping the rope at his chest. Peggy crawled down to his waist and settled herself on her stomach between his legs, her own in the air and crossed at the ankle.

She teased him with soft kisses and softer touches at the inside of his thighs, largely ignoring his half-hardness, skin not quite pulled back, until she put her lips on him. He smiled in satisfaction and arched his back when she pulled away, foreskin caught gently between her lips. She swallowed him by centimeters, stroking and twisting with one hand, humming around the length of him with her own satisfaction when he came to full attention. She sucked hard, hollowing her cheeks, and lifted off with a pop.

“I’m going to unravel you.”

Steve barked out a laugh, “Already halfway there, doll.” She frowned, not a particular fan of the pet name. “Peg.”

“I mean all of this.” She gestured to the blue coils around his body. He began to object and she put a hand up to dismiss it.

She started with the knots on either side of his groin, pulling carefully when he’d bent his knees to raise his legs. He rose up on his knees with her, hands heavily on her shoulders, as she unwound the lines from his rear and hips and began to uncoil those around his waist.

***

Steve shivered bodily as the last coils whipped across his back and belly, his skin burning deliciously with the friction even as gentle as Peggy was being. She moved behind him to work the braid out of the line up the center of his back. The chest piece took longer to unwind, the pattern more intricate and loops more numerous.

He looked down at himself and the haphazard pile of blue on either side of him. He ran his hands over his chest and stomach and legs, tracing the twisting indents of each line of rope and firm knot with his fingertips. The little bit of feeling he hadn't even noticed he lost was rocketing through his limbs like a gunshot and making every bit of him hypersensitive.

Peggy’s breath on his neck was warm and humid and loud as she traced the lines over his back and buttocks with her cool hands.

“I... I like this too.”

“You look beautiful.” He felt heat rise in his cheeks at the compliment. His cock throbbed with interest and neglect.

She shuffled around him on her knees, stealing his breath with a kiss, filling his mouth with too many tongues, tugging him down toward the mattress again by the scruff on the back of his head. She fumbled for a moment to dig blindly through the beside drawer, her body hovering over him, the smooth silk of her dress prickling at the edges of his senses as it dragged over the rope stripes and puddled around their waists.

“Ha!” She grinned madly, holding up the square packet between her fingers. He laughed, the sound rumbling in the back of his throat as she ripped it open and rolled the condom down. She seated herself in one motion, a hand on his chest to brace herself and the other disappearing beneath her skirt, and set to rolling her hips back and forth in the fluid rhythm of the connecting rods of a train’s driving wheels.

Something about her being nearly fully clothed while he was nearly nude and fully exposed in every way that mattered made his head spin.

He reached out to her in want of contact, fingers tracing the line of buttons down the front of her dress. She leaned forward, pressing their bodies together, hips still rolling back and forth. He wormed a hand between them, situating his knuckles against her. She pressed her lips together and groaned at the added stimulation, fingers digging into the fading groves in his shoulders.

His orgasm chased after hers, canting his hips up as she rolled hers back, riding through the sensation and trying to catch at every last bit of contact he could.

They lay with legs tangled in the lines, dress and shorts and brassiere discarded, boneless and satisfied.

Steve couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept as well.

***

Peggy couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so fitfully. Until, of course, she remembered who’s bed she was in and how he preferred sleeping flopped onto his stomach on the glorified cement block he called a mattress. It wasn't that she preferred to sleep on something exceptionally soft, she disliked the feeling of being swallowed whole by a sentient marshmallow as well. She just didn't enjoy the feeling of having slept on the sidewalk.

She slipped out of bed and into the shower and made herself comfortable on the couch in the living room with the morning news on mute and reading the anchor's lips to not disturb Steve.

It wasn’t often he slept through the night, his head filled with nightmares and memories that were made of nightmares.

He pressed his lips to the crown of her head, “Sweatshirt thief.”

“Guilty as charged, Captain.”

“Ya never cease to amaze me, y’know. Full face on before the rest of the world wakes up.” She shrugged and smacked her lips like she was blotting her lipstick. “Wanna run with me later? Promise I’ll keep a pace y’kin follow, slow poke.”

“I shall ignore that. I seem to recall someone needing to win a ride back to base in a Jeep for fear of kicking the bucket on a training course.”

They chatted nonchalantly over what to break their fast with while the coffee pot percolated. “It’s not the usual stuff, no idea if it’ll be any good. Wasn't payin' attention when I picked it up.” Peggy turned up her lip in a grimace at the taste, somehow watery and too strong at the same time and far too sharp. Steve took a long sip and swallowed before dumping his mug in the sink. “Only person deserves that crap is Schmidt ‘imself.”

She laughed and let him take the mug from her hands. “I’ll run to the deli ‘round the corner.”

“Please. I’ll start cookin’.” She pulled a pair of pants out of the overnight bag still sitting near the door and shimmied into them while she shoved her feet into a pair of his boots.

On her way back up to the apartment, piping hot paper cups in hand, she met Kate once more. “Night shift?”

The blonde yawned exaggeratedly and clicked the heels of her sneakers together. “Eleven to seven is always a killer.” The made their way up the stairs and Kate turned round. “You’re Carter, right?”

“Yes.”

“Mailman put a package for you in my box. I’m always getting Steve’s mail by mistake, mostly junk. Guess the odd name threw ‘im off more than usual.” Peggy waited near the door for her to retrieve the package, relieved that she had not opened it. “Hey, would you guys happen to have some sugar to spare? I’m dyin’ for some coffee myself and I haven’t got any.” She held up a snack container and gave Peggy a pleading look.

Peggy considered the request for a moment, “Certainly.” She tucked her parcel under her arm, cups carefully balanced one on top of the other, to unlock the door. Steve was still dressed in a pair of tartan boxers when the ladies stepped into the kitchen.

“Decided on eggs, Peg. Keep forgettin’ how much I actually liked ‘em after eatin’ that powdered nonsense so long.” He spoke with his back to them, arm working rapidly to move the whisk through the large bowl of bright yellow liquid.

“Whipping those eggs into submission, darling?” She placed the cups down carefully and put the package down next to them on the counter.

“Nah, that’s your job. Don’t go makin’ me jealous of breakfast.” He looked over his shoulder, his broad smile dropping and the whisk aborting its motion when he noticed Kate. He cleared his throat and did his best to act casual. “Mornin’, neighbor.”

Peggy took the container from Kate and went to fill it with sugar from the cupboard with a sly smile on her face.

“Morning, Steve. Hope those eggs aren’t giving you too much attitude. Just came by for some sugar. Mailman gave me your stuff again.” Kate gestured to the parcel. Peggy handed back the container, easily helping herself to the identification card clipped to the front pocket of the girl’s scrub shirt. “Thanks.” Kate smiled and waved at Steve who waved awkwardly back. She closed the door quietly behind her, her eyes sweeping across the visible space of the apartment.

Peggy looked down at the ID, turning it over in her hands while the pan Steve was pouring the beaten eggs into hissed and sizzled. She picked at the edge, a layer of film easily peeling away once she got her nail under the edge.

A SHIELD badge.

Doctored up to appear to be an ID card from Sibley Memorial.

“Sloppy.” She had to wonder if that was intentional, allowing her to lift the card and the shoddy cover-up.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing, darling, I’ll be right back.”

“Where ya goin’?”

“Next door. Her hospital badge was here on the floor.”

She knocked on the neighboring apartment door and waited patiently for Kate to answer. “Hey again. Whats _uh_ \--”

Peggy pushed in through the door and shoved the agent against the wall just inside. She clipped the badge daintily to the collar of the scrub shirt and patted it. “The agent shadowing me was kind enough to introduce himself after I’d managed to give him the slip several times in the first week. Steve is far more trusting than I am and you’re just the right amount of coy to make him distance himself. I don’t know what SHIELD’s agenda is, but if you compromise his privacy or the little bit of peace he has here, we’ll be having words.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kate was surprisingly calm.

“I suspect _Kate_ isn’t really your name?”

“Agent Carter.”

“Yes?”

“No, my... my name. Agent... Carter. Sharon Carter.” Peggy felt the color drain from her face, her heart fluttered in her chest.

“What?”

“I--”

“No.” She put a hand up. “This didn’t happen. I came and returned your badge. That’s all.”

“Yes, ma’am. I--”

“No.”

“I have to tell Director Fury that my cover’s been compromised. I assume he’s already aware that the agent shadowing you has been. I told him it wasn’t a good idea to put me on this detail. It’s a conflict of interest.”

Peggy glared at Kate--Sharon--and shook her head. “No. Because your cover hasn’t been compromised. This hasn’t happened. There is no interest to be conflicted.”

“ _Aunt Peggy._ ”

Peggy’s eyes stung. “No.” The smile. Harrison’s smile. Her brother’s smile. She turned to back out of the door and stopped. “It was cruel you know, the cover story. His mother was a nurse. Though, I suppose that was the point.” She turned to leave and stopped again, “We will speak later.”

She took a moment to lean back against the door and catch her breath when she got back inside.

“So what was that all about?”

“Nothing, she dropped her hospital badge, I was returning it.” Steve was pushing fluffy scrambled eggs out from the frying pan onto a plate with a spatula. He regarded her questioningly for a moment.

He jerked his chin toward the rectangular parcel on the counter. “Another one of your surprises?”

“Hm. Yes.” She took the plates from him and he tucked the parcel under his arm and carried their cups to the table. They enjoyed their light meal and sipped their coffee while the news played in the background. “Real eggs are much better.”

“Agreed. So what’s in this thing?”

“Open it.” His eyebrows shot into his hairline in surprise at the contents of the package. An intrigued smile crawled over his lips.

“Tonight?”

She nodded and got to her feet and fished her phone out of her jacket pocket where it hung by the door. “Maybe.”

 _Trip, I want everything you know about Sharon Carter. Why didn't anyone tell me?_ Steve gave her a quizzical look. She simply smiled back and sipped her coffee as she tapped the send button. Maybe she’d go for that run with Steve. They could loop by the Triskellion and she could give Director Fury a piece of her mind. It would save the frustration of Antoine telling her he couldn't share information. _  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's Steve's [shirt](http://www.asos.com/ASOS/ASOS-Shirt-In-Long-Sleeve-With-Grandad-Collar/Prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=4625754&cid=3602&Rf958=3974&Rf-200=16&sh=0&pge=0&pgesize=36&sort=-1&clr=Grey&totalstyles=35&gridsize=3) and [waistcoat](http://www.asos.com/Selected/Selected-Tuxedo-Waistcoat-In-Skinny-Fit/Prod/pgeproduct.aspx?iid=4729719&sgid=9834&cid=12287&Rf-200=33,3&sh=0&pge=0&pgesize=36&sort=-1&clr=Navy&totalstyles=28&gridsize=3) because I just kind of love to shop for Steve. His hair's the way Chris Evans tends to keep his. I like the idea of long-haired Steve. He very nearly had a beard as well, but I didn't want to throw too much sexy at you all at once. And here's where Peggy got her [rope](http://www.degiottorope.com/default.asp), I found it through a blog I'm quite fond of run by two lovely riggers. You know, just in case you needed to have your very own handcrafted blue bondage rope.
> 
> They're listening to _[Pistol Packin' Mama](https://youtu.be/7uESJlJAj7g)_ by Al Dexter. It was number one on the Billboard chart at the end of October '43.
> 
> I'm going on the theory that Trip is Jones' grandson. I'm not sure if it was ever officially confirmed, but I think the context clues point to that in terms of when the character was introduced and the photographs in his family home. Also adds just a touch more bitter-sweetness to the interactions between Peg and Gabe in the first part of this story line. I'm also operating on the fact that Sharon's parents (more likely grandparents?) are Peggy's brother and his wife, Harrison and Amanda Carter. The hospital I named is a real one, attached to John Hopkins Med, I don't know much more about it though. Just didn't feel like making up a name.
> 
> Steve uses a heart rhythm meditation technique called "square breath" in which one draws in and exhales breath for a specific count and holds it between for the sum of those counts.
> 
> The cosmetic references come from Atwell's tweets. Unfortunately, the perfume is listed as sold out. I am on a quest to get my hands on the lipstick and nail polish, though. If I manage, I shall report back to you all on my success. The polish, at least, has proven difficult.
> 
> Couldn't resist the cliche of old people clicking on things they shouldn't. Steve picks up on things very quickly, and is in no way technologically inept. But I doubt anyone would have thought to explain something so commonplace and ingrained into the general psyche.
> 
> Thought the use of "tesseract" as a safeword had strong enough connotations for both Steve and Peggy, especially within this storyline, to pull either party out of sub- or domme-space and end a scene. If anyone has a suggestion for a non-verbal safeword in the event DommePeggy becomes, well, a thing, please let me know.


End file.
